Guide · Timing & triggers · UK-Wide
Yielding up usually means a professional clean, and the clock matters. Cleaning and documenting it before the end date is how you take the cleanliness items off a dilapidations claim.
The short answer
Most commercial leases require you to yield up the premises in a defined state, and a professional clean is usually part of that obligation. Cleaning before you hand back - and documenting it - is how you close off the cleanliness side of a dilapidations claim before it becomes a bill.
The trap is timing. A tenant's power to put things right ends when the lease does. Do the work before the end date and you control the cost; leave it until after and the landlord can carry it out and charge you, often with loss of rent and fees stacked on top. On a full repairing lease, the cleanliness and condition of a kitchen you fitted and used is squarely your responsibility, and it is one of the items a surveyor will list first because it is the easiest to see.
Where the clean fits
A schedule of dilapidations groups three kinds of obligation: repair, redecoration and reinstatement. A deep clean answers the part of that schedule that turns on cleanliness and condition - the grease-laden canopy and duct, the equipment left greasy, the floor gullies, the walls and ceilings carrying cooking residue. These are the items where "we cleaned it and here is the dated report" simply removes a line from the surveyor's list. Documented evidence matters as much as the work itself, because under the Dilapidations Protocol the negotiation runs on what each side can show. The kind of report you should expect is set out in the report you receive after a professional deep clean.
Be clear about the boundary, though. A deep clean is not a builder's clean and it is not a strip-out. It will not reinstate alterations you made, remove partitions or signage, or repair fabric that is genuinely damaged rather than dirty. Those are separate limbs of the schedule with separate contractors. Understanding the line between a surface tidy and a deep clean helps you brief the right people for the right items - the distinction is drawn out in the difference between a builder's clean and a kitchen deep clean. Extraction is a common flashpoint because a canopy-only wipe leaves the duct untouched, and a landlord's surveyor will look inside - why the canopy and the duct are treated as separate items is covered in what is separate about extraction canopies in a deep clean.
The sequence that protects a deposit or caps a claim is straightforward. Get the schedule early - ideally before you are anywhere near the end date - so you know what is being asked. Book the deep clean far enough ahead that any re-clean of missed items can happen while you still hold the lease. And keep the report, with photographs and a date, as your evidence in any negotiation. A landlord's opening figure is a starting position, not a verdict, and clean documented items are the ones that come off it fastest.
The honest limit applies here too. A handover deep clean resets and evidences the cleanliness and condition of the kitchen - but it is necessary, not sufficient, for a clean exit. It does not discharge your repair or reinstatement obligations, and it is not legal advice on your lease. Treat it as the item that takes the cleaning questions off the table so you and your surveyor can focus on the ones that genuinely need negotiating.
Questions
No. It settles the cleanliness and condition items - grease, residue, drains, equipment. It does not cover repair of damaged fabric or reinstatement of alterations, which are separate limbs of the schedule handled by different contractors.
Because your right to carry out the work ends with the lease. Do it beforehand and you control the cost. Leave it and the landlord can do it and charge you - potentially with loss of rent and professional fees added on top.
A dated deep-clean report with photographs. Under the Dilapidations Protocol the negotiation runs on what each side can show, so documented cleaning is what actually takes items off the landlord's schedule.
Because a canopy wipe leaves the duct untouched, and grease in the duct is both a condition item and a fire risk. A landlord's surveyor will look inside, so the clean needs to cover the full system, not just the visible hood.
No. A builder's clean clears dust and debris after works; a deep clean removes cooking grease and residue from the whole kitchen system. For a handover you want the deep clean, and often the report that proves it was done.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Book a handover deep clean while you still hold the lease. We clean to condition and hand you the dated report your surveyor will want. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.