Cleaning is number one, five years running
For tenants and landlords
The Deposit Protection Service publishes the causes of the deductions made from the deposits it holds. Its June 2026 release, covering calendar year 2025, puts cleaning first for the fifth consecutive year — and cleaning is the only cause on the list that has risen every single year.
| Cause | Share of deductions | Direction |
|---|---|---|
| Cleaning | 29.38% | Rising every year since 2021 |
| Damage | 18.42% | Second-placed cause |
| Rent arrears | 16.45% | Falling every year |
| Redecoration | 10.88% | Fourth-placed cause |
| Other | 13.31% | All remaining causes |
The five-year series is the part worth sitting with. Cleaning has climbed from 24.57% in 2021 to 29.38% in 2025, while rent arrears — the thing most people assume dominates — has fallen every year to 16.45%.
| Year | Cleaning share of deduction causes |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 24.57% |
| 2022 | 26.72% |
| 2023 | 27.7% |
| 2024 | 28.66% |
| 2025 | 29.38% |
Set against that, disputes themselves are rare. Matt Trevett, Managing Director of The DPS, states that fewer than 5% of protected deposits end in a dispute. Almost every tenancy ends with the money returned by agreement. The reason this guide exists is that when a tenancy does not end that way, it is overwhelmingly about cleaning — and the outcome then turns on documents that had to be created months or years earlier.
Why the DPS and TDS numbers differ
For tenants and landlords
You will see cleaning quoted as 29% in one article and 54% in the next, usually with no explanation. Both are correct. They measure different things, and blending them produces a figure that means nothing.
- The DPS figure — 29.38%. Cleaning's share of all deduction causes. Every cause is counted once and the list sums to 100%.
- The TDS figure — 54%. The share of disputes containing a cleaning claim. One dispute usually carries several heads of claim, so the shares sum to well over 150%.
The Tenancy Deposit Scheme's Statistical Briefing, published 11 December 2025 and covering the year to March 2025, breaks England and Wales disputes down like this.
| Claim type | England & Wales | Scotland |
|---|---|---|
| Cleaning | 54% | 58% |
| Damage | 49% | 39% |
| Redecoration | 31% | 25% |
| Gardening | 14% | Not published in this series |
| Rent arrears | 10% | Not published in this series |
4,706,470
Deposits protected, worth £5.53bn
£1,175
Average protected deposit
46,950
Adjudications — 1% of protected deposits
Under 5%
Of DPS-protected deposits end in a dispute
One deliberate omission: you will find an "average award split" widely quoted online, apportioning deposits between landlord and tenant. The figures trace to a secondary blog whose other numbers contradict the TDS briefing itself, so they are not repeated here. Nor are any percentages attributed to mydeposits — that scheme does not publish them.
Can a landlord make you pay for professional cleaning?
For tenants and landlords
This is the most searched question on the topic and the most consistently misreported. The answer turns on a distinction that most articles collapse entirely.
The ban is on the service, not the standard
Under the Tenant Fees Act 2019, a tenancy clause requiring the tenant to pay for professional cleaning is a prohibited payment. It has applied to all pre-existing tenancies since 1 June 2020, so there is no legacy contract still carrying a valid version of that clause.
What survives is the standard. A landlord may still require the property back at the cleanliness standard recorded at check-in, and may still deduct where it is not met. The tenant chooses how to reach that standard: a firm, a friend, or a weekend and a bucket. Nobody can compel the receipt.
The DPS betterment rule closes the obvious workaround: there is no award for "expecting professional cleaning beyond initial condition". If the property was handed over cleaned to a good domestic standard, a professional-grade return is not the benchmark.
What the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 did — and did not — change
Stated plainly, because a great deal of 2026 content implies otherwise: the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 changed nothing about deposit deductions. Royal Assent was 27 October 2025 and main commencement 1 May 2026. What it did do:
- Abolished section 21 no-fault eviction
- Converted assured shorthold tenancies into assured periodic tenancies
- Ended fixed terms
- Capped rent in advance at one month
- Banned rent bidding
Deposit caps are untouched: five weeks’ rent where annual rent is under £50,000, six weeks between £50,000 and £100,000. The grounds on which a deduction can be made are untouched. The apportionment approach is untouched.
There is one change that genuinely matters here, and it runs the other way. With section 21 gone, deposit-protection compliance now bites directly on possession: section 26 of the Act amends Part 6 Chapter 4 of the Housing Act 2004 so that a court may order possession only if the deposit is held in an authorised scheme.
One further point of confusion worth clearing. Because assured shorthold tenancies no longer exist, the Tenant Fees Act had to be re-pointed at assured tenancies. Shelter Legal, updated 1 May 2026, records that from that date a landlord or agent cannot charge a banned fee to a private assured tenant. That is a re-scoping to match the new tenancy type, not a new expansion of the fee rules to older tenancies — several sources have reported it as the latter.
What adjudicators actually see
For tenants and landlords
An adjudication is not a hearing. Nobody visits the property. Nobody is cross-examined. An adjudicator reads what the two parties send and decides on the balance of probabilities — more likely than not. That is the whole process, and it has two consequences that decide most cases before they are read.
The burden sits entirely on the landlord
The deposit is the tenant’s money until the landlord proves otherwise. That is a statement of where the burden lies, not a position on who deserves to win. In practice it means a claim that is merely asserted fails. TDS puts it bluntly via the NRLA: the adjudicator will not look for documentary evidence if it is missing from your claim.
The same guidance warns against the opposite error — burying the case by oversupplying. A hundred photographs with no written report is not a stronger submission than eight indexed documents. It is a weaker one, because the adjudicator has to reconstruct the argument themselves.
Documents only means documents must stand alone
Reports have to be readable "without needing to go back to the memory of the person who wrote them". Room by room, starting at the main entrance, working logically through each floor. Appliance makes and models recorded, so a replacement cost can be assessed. Utility meter readings — and any oil tank level — in both the check-in and the check-out.
Photographs are supplementary
This surprises people. Scheme guidance treats photographs as "an addition to, not a substitute for the written word", partly because a photograph cannot convey dirt or dust — the exact thing most cleaning disputes are about. Photographs earn their place on gardens, unusual items and genuine before-and-after comparisons, shot like for like with similar lighting and camera angles. Submitted separately, they must be clearly signed and dated.
The eight documents
- Signed check-in report
- Signed check-out report
- Signed tenancy agreement
- Periodic inspection reports
- Invoices or quotes for the work claimed
- Rent statements
- Date-stamped photographs or video
- Correspondence between the parties, plus any witness statements
Anyone can prepare an inventory, but independent clerks carry an advantage in adjudication: landlords, as scheme guidance politely puts it, can lack expertise or struggle with objectivity about their own property.
The check-in report that wins, and the one that loses
For tenants and landlords
If there is one thing to take from this page, it is this, and it comes from TDS’s own guidance: cleanliness is recorded separately from condition. In their words, condition is not the same as cleanliness.
A check-in report that describes only condition — "carpet: good, no marks; oven: working" — does not establish the cleanliness standard at the start of the tenancy. When a cleaning deduction is then claimed at the end, there is no baseline for the check-out to be measured against, and the claim usually fails before the invoices are looked at. This is the single biggest failure point in the most common category of deduction in the country.
| Loses | Wins | |
|---|---|---|
| Cleanliness | Not recorded, or “sparkle clean” | “Professionally cleaned” or “cleaned to a good domestic standard”, recorded per room |
| Condition | Merged into one line with cleanliness | Recorded separately from cleanliness, room by room |
| Appliances | “Oven — fine” | Make, model and cleanliness state recorded |
| Meters | Omitted | Readings at check-in and check-out, plus oil tank level where relevant |
| Timing | Written up weeks later from memory | Prepared at or just before the start; tenant confirms within about seven days |
| Check-out | Whenever someone gets round to it | As soon as possible after the end, same room order |
Tenants have the same interest in this as landlords, from the other direction. A vague check-in report is not a tenant’s friend either — it is simply an argument nobody can win cleanly. Read the cleanliness wording on day one, and if it is missing, say so in writing within the confirmation window.
Fair wear and tear, damage and dirt are three different things
For tenants and landlords
Most deposit arguments are really a disagreement about which of these three categories something falls into. They are tested differently and they resolve differently.
| Category | What it covers | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Fair wear and tear | Reasonable use of the premises by the tenant, and the ordinary operation of natural forces | No deduction. Ever. |
| Damage | Deterioration beyond reasonable use — a burn, a tear, a break | Deduction, apportioned for age and lifespan |
| Dirt | Cleanliness below the standard recorded at check-in | Deduction at cost, with no apportionment for age |
The wear and tear wording above is the formulation used in scheme guidance. It traces back to a 1959 House of Lords case, but the law report is paywalled and the exact phrasing unverified, so it is presented here as scheme guidance rather than quoted as case text.
What an adjudicator weighs
- How long the tenant lived there
- How many occupants there were, and their ages
- Whether pets were permitted and present
- The quality, age and expected lifespan of the item
- How robustly the property was built and fitted out
Betterment is prohibited
No award may leave the landlord better off than before the tenancy. That rules out replacing an old item with a new one at the tenant’s expense, and redecorating to a higher standard than existed at check-in. It is the principle the apportionment formula exists to enforce.
Product lifespans, and the apportionment calculator
For tenants and landlords
When something has to be replaced, the tenant does not pay for a new one. They pay for the value the item still had left. TDS publishes a Guide to Product Lifespans that adjudicators work from; it is reproduced in full below.
| Item | Expected lifespan (years) |
|---|---|
| Carpet | Low 2–4 · medium 5–8 · high 8–15 |
| Natural fibre floor covering | Up to 8 |
| Laminate / vinyl flooring | 5–10 |
| Hardwood flooring | 15–50 |
| Decoration / paint | 3–5 |
| Washing machine | Low 2–5 · medium 6–8 · high 9–12 |
| Dishwasher | Low up to 5 · medium up to 10 · high up to 15 |
| Oven / cooker / hob | 9–15 |
| Mattress | Up to 8 |
| Curtains | Low up to 5 · medium up to 10 · high up to 20 |
| Blinds | Low up to 3 · medium up to 8 · high up to 15 |
The formula, in five steps
- Replacement costThe cost of a similar item — like for like, not an upgrade.
- Age and lifespanThe item's actual age, and its average useful lifespan.
- Residual lifespanLifespan minus age. What the item still had left to give.
- Depreciation rateReplacement cost divided by lifespan — the value used per year.
The tenant’s share is then residual lifespan × depreciation rate. On the DPS worked example — a £500 carpet, two years old, five-year lifespan — the rate is £100 a year, three years remained, and the tenant’s share is £300 rather than £500.
Adjudicators may require receipts confirming an item’s age, cost and quality when new before applying any of this. Without them, the age and quality inputs are assertion.
Apportionment calculator
The same five steps an adjudicator works through on a replacement claim. It opens on the DPS worked example — a £500 carpet, two years old, with a five-year lifespan.
The arithmetic
- Replacement cost of a similar item
- £500.00
- Actual age
- 2 years
- Average useful lifespan
- 5 years
- Residual lifespan (lifespan − age)
- 3 years
- Depreciation rate (cost ÷ lifespan)
- £100.00 / year
Tenant’s fair share (residual × rate)
£300.00
Paste this into your submission
The carpet cost £500.00 when new and is 2 years old. Scheme guidance gives a medium quality carpet a lifespan of 5–8 years, and I have used 5 years. That leaves a residual lifespan of 3 years and a depreciation rate of £100.00 per year (£500.00 ÷ 5). The tenant's fair share is therefore 3 × £100.00 = £300.00, not the full replacement cost, because awarding the full cost would replace a part-worn item with a new one.
Lifespan figures are ranges published as scheme guidance in the TDS Guide to Product Lifespans. There is no statutory useful-life schedule in England, and an adjudicator may take a different figure on the evidence in front of them. Nothing you type here is sent anywhere; it stays in this browser.
The evidence scorer
For tenants and landlords
Fifteen checks, drawn from the TDS adjudication guidance and the mydeposits evidence list, weighted by how much a documents-only decision turns on each. Tick what you hold today, not what you could produce if asked. Landlords should read the score as the strength of a claim; tenants should read it as the strength of the claim being made against them.
Evidence scorer
Tick what you actually hold — not what you could get. Items are weighted by how much an adjudicator’s decision turns on them, which is why the first one is worth five times an appliance model number.
Not yet evidenced
0%0 of 42 weighted points
As it stands, a deduction on this file would be difficult to sustain. The burden sits entirely on the landlord, the standard is the balance of probabilities, and the adjudicator can only read what is sent.
Cleanliness is not recorded separately from condition at check-in. That single gap is the documented number one reason cleaning deductions fail, because there is no baseline standard for the check-out to be measured against.
Still missing
- Cleanliness is recorded separately from condition at check-in
- The cleanliness wording is specific, not vague
- Signed check-in report
- Signed check-out report
- Both reports stand alone
- Signed tenancy agreement
- Appliance makes and models recorded
- Utility meter readings — and any oil tank level — in both reports
- Date-stamped photographs or video
- Before and after photographs are genuinely comparable
- Periodic inspection reports during the tenancy
- Invoices or quotes for the work claimed
- Receipts confirming an item's age, cost and quality when new
- Rent statement
- Correspondence between the parties
A score is not a prediction. Adjudicators decide on the documents in front of them, on the balance of probabilities, and the burden sits with the landlord throughout. Your ticks stay in this browser.
For tenants: the week before check-out, in order
For tenants
Cleaning deductions are the easiest category to avoid entirely, because the standard is written down and you are allowed to read it before you start.
- Seven days out — read the check-in reportFind the cleanliness wording specifically. That sentence, not your own view of the place, is the standard you are being measured against.
- Five days out — clear everything out firstCleaning around belongings is the most common reason a professional clean still fails a check-out. Empty lofts, sheds, meter cupboards and the space under the stairs.
- Three days out — the appliance and extract listOven, hob, extractor filter, fridge seals, washing machine drawer and filter, shower screen and grout, window tracks, skirting, and the tops of doors and units.
- Two days out — garden, bins and storageGardening appears in 14% of England and Wales disputes. Cut back, weed, empty the bins, and photograph the garden — this is where photographs work best.
- The day itself — document it the way an adjudicator reads itRoom by room from the main entrance, same order as the check-in, with the meter readings. Keep the cleaning invoice even if a deduction is never raised.
Two things people consistently get wrong. First, cleaning before clearing: a clean around boxes reads as an unclean property at check-out, whoever did the work. Second, assuming a professional invoice settles it — it does not, because the test is the standard achieved against check-in, not the receipt produced. Keep the invoice anyway; it is useful supporting evidence, just not the argument itself.
If a deduction is proposed and you disagree, ask for the check-in cleanliness wording, the check-out entry for the same room, and the invoice or quote. If any of the three is missing, say so — the burden of producing them is not yours.
For landlords: the deduction that survives adjudication
For landlords
A cleaning deduction fails far more often on paperwork than on merit. The property really was left dirty; the file just could not prove what "clean" meant at the start.
- Start from the check-in wordingQuote the exact cleanliness sentence from the check-in report. If the report only describes condition, the cleaning head of claim will usually fail before anything else is read.
- Separate dirt from damage from wearThree different tests apply. Bundling them into one figure invites the adjudicator to work out the split themselves, and the burden of proving it is yours.
- Cost every line with a documentInvoice or quote per line. For replacements, add the receipt showing age, original cost and quality — the formula cannot run without them.
- Apply the apportionment formula yourselfShow the arithmetic in your submission. A claim for the full replacement cost of a part-worn item reads as betterment and gets reduced on sight.
- Submit enough, not everythingTDS warns against burying the case in material. Send the eight core documents, indexed, and let each one do one job.
One structural decision is worth more than any of the above: use an independent inventory clerk for both the check-in and the check-out. Scheme guidance is explicit that anyone may prepare an inventory but that independence carries weight, precisely because a landlord assessing their own property struggles with objectivity. The cost is small against an average protected deposit of £1,175.
Finally, protect the deposit properly and keep the evidence that you did. Since 1 May 2026, that compliance is no longer a technicality — under RRA 2025 s.26 a court may order possession only where the deposit is held in an authorised scheme.
Scotland and Northern Ireland
For tenants and landlords
The evidential approach is broadly consistent across the schemes, but the volumes, the dispute rates and the surrounding tenancy law are not. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 applies to England.
| Nation | Deposits protected | Disputes | Dispute rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| England & Wales | 4,706,470 | 46,950 adjudications | 1% | Average deposit £1,175; £5.53bn protected |
| Scotland | 243,283 | 5,951 disputes | 2.44% | Cleaning appears in 58% of disputes |
| Northern Ireland | 72,790 | 358 disputes | 0.49% | Average deposit £709.50 |
Scotland has both the highest dispute rate and the highest cleaning share: cleaning appears in 58% of Scottish disputes, against 54% in England and Wales, with damage at 39% and redecoration at 25%. Northern Ireland is the quietest jurisdiction on this measure by some distance — 358 disputes against 72,790 protected deposits, on an average deposit of £709.50.
If your tenancy is in Scotland or Northern Ireland, treat the evidence standard and the apportionment arithmetic on this page as sound practice — they are what the schemes apply — but take the tenancy law, deposit caps and timescales from your own jurisdiction rather than from the English position described above.
Frequently asked questions
About this guide
Written and reviewed by the Hello Services end of tenancy cleaning team. Sources, each cited by scheme and publication date: The Deposit Protection Service, deduction causes published June 2026 covering calendar 2025, including comment from Managing Director Matt Trevett; Tenancy Deposit Scheme, Statistical Briefing published 11 December 2025 covering the year to March 2025; TDS, A Guide to Product Lifespans; TDS adjudication guidance published via the NRLA; mydeposits evidence guidance; Tenant Fees Act 2019; Housing Act 2004 Part 6 Chapter 4; Renters’ Rights Act 2025; Shelter Legal, updated 1 May 2026.
DPS and TDS percentages are measured on different bases and are never combined on this page. No average award split between landlord and tenant is stated, because the figures circulating online trace to a secondary source that contradicts the TDS briefing. No percentages are attributed to mydeposits, which publishes none.
This is general information about deposit protection and adjudication practice, principally in England. It is not legal advice and does not create a solicitor-client relationship. If you are in a live dispute, take your own advice or contact your deposit scheme. Reviewed .
End of tenancy cleaning with the documentation adjudicators want
Hello Services cleans to the check-in standard and hands back an itemised, room-by-room report with photographs — the written record a deposit decision is actually made from, whether you are the tenant handing back or the landlord letting again.
Related services
- End of tenancy cleaningRoom-by-room clean to the check-in standard, with an itemised report and photographs.
- Deep cleaningAppliances, extract, grout and the places a routine clean never reaches.
- All cleaning servicesDomestic, commercial and specialist cleaning across our coverage areas.
- Clearance before the cleanClear the property first — cleaning around belongings is the most common check-out failure.