Failed Your Inventory Check? What to Do Next

Right. You’ve had the inventory check and it hasn’t gone well. The clerk has flagged the oven, the bathroom, the carpets, whatever it is. Your heart sinks. You think you’ve lost your deposit.

Stop. Breathe. It’s fixable.

We get calls like this two or three times a week at BCH. Panicked tenants who’ve just had the bad news. Most of the time, we sort it out. Here’s how.

Don’t Panic: You Have Options

A failed inventory check is not the same as losing your deposit. Not yet. You usually have a window to put things right before deductions get confirmed.

Check your timeline. Most letting agents give you 24 to 72 hours to rectify issues flagged in the check-out report. Some give longer. Some give less. Ask the agent immediately: how long do I have?

Get the specifics in writing. Don’t rely on a phone call. Ask for the written check-out report listing exactly what failed and why. You need to know whether they’re saying the oven is greasy, the carpets are stained, or the bathroom has limescale. Each problem has a different solution.

Take your own photos. Before anything else, photograph everything the clerk flagged. And everything they didn’t. You want a record of the actual condition, not just their description of it.

Check it against your check-in inventory. If the clerk says the bath sealant is mouldy, but the check-in inventory from three years ago doesn’t mention the sealant at all, that weakens the landlord’s case. Fair wear applies. Context matters.

Honestly, about half the “failed” inventory checks we see aren’t as bad as they sound. The clerk notes everything. That’s their job. But not everything noted will result in a deduction. Some of it is just recording the condition, not flagging a problem.

Common Reasons Inventory Checks Fail

After 25 years of doing this, we see the same issues over and over.

The oven. Number one by a mile. Grease build-up inside the oven, between the glass panels on the door, on the racks. Even if you cleaned it, if you didn’t clean it properly, it’ll fail. Most people don’t realise how much grease is hiding between the glass layers.

Limescale in the bathroom. Bristol has some of the hardest water in the country. If you’re in a property around Stoke Bishop or up towards Filton, your taps, shower screen, and toilet will have visible limescale within months. Standard cleaning products don’t shift heavy limescale. You need specialist descalers and some elbow grease.

Carpet stains. Pet stains, wine spills, general grubbiness after a couple of years. Vacuuming doesn’t remove stains. Carpets need hot water extraction to pass inspection.

Kitchen cupboards. Inside and on top. The inside gets sticky. The top gets a layer of greasy dust that’s invisible until you run your finger through it.

Extractor fans. Kitchen and bathroom. Clogged with grease or dust. Most tenants never clean them during the entire tenancy.

Skirting boards and door tops. Dust and grime accumulate. Every room. The clerk checks every room.

A lot of these are covered in our end of tenancy cleaning checklist. If you’d used it before the check, you might not be reading this. But that’s water under the bridge.

Getting a Specialist Re-Clean

This is where we come in. A professional re-clean after a failed inventory targets exactly what the clerk flagged.

Tell us exactly what failed. Forward us the check-out report. We’ll read through it and tell you what we can fix and what we can’t. We’re straight about it. If the sealant is mouldy and needs replacing, cleaning won’t help. If the oven is greasy, we’ll sort it.

Speed matters. If you’ve got 48 hours, ring us now. Don’t email. Don’t wait until tomorrow. Call 07985 505061. We keep slots open specifically for urgent re-cleans because we know how this works.

What a re-clean costs. It depends on what failed. If it’s just the oven and the bathroom, you’re looking at £100 to £180. If the whole property needs redoing because the first clean wasn’t good enough, it could be £200 to £350. Still cheaper than the deposit deduction.

We provide a guarantee. If we re-clean it and the agent still isn’t happy with the items we addressed, we’ll come back again. We’ve been doing end of tenancy cleaning in Bristol for 25 years. We know what agents expect.

Keep the receipt. If the re-clean sorts the issues and the agent signs off, great. If there’s still a dispute about the deposit, that receipt proves you took reasonable steps to put things right. Adjudicators look favourably on tenants who tried.

If Re-Cleaning Isn’t Possible

Sometimes cleaning won’t fix the problem. Damaged items can’t be cleaned away. Knowing the difference saves you time and money.

Mould in sealant. If the silicone sealant around the bath or shower has gone black with mould, cleaning it won’t work. It needs replacing. A tube of bathroom sealant costs about a fiver. Doing it yourself takes half an hour. Or we can arrange it as part of a re-clean.

Burns or scorching. Burn marks on a worktop, scorch marks on the hob surround. These are damage, not dirt. Cleaning won’t remove them. You may face a deduction for these, but the amount should reflect the age and condition of the item, not the cost of a brand new one. A five-year-old worktop is not worth the same as a new one.

Carpet damage. Bleach stains, cigarette burns, deep pet damage. Hot water extraction can’t fix these. If the carpet was new when you moved in, the deduction will be higher. If it was already worn, less so.

Broken fixtures. Cracked tiles, broken blinds, damaged door handles. Not a cleaning issue. But document the condition. Was it like that when you moved in?

Staining on walls. Some marks come off with sugar soap. Some don’t. If you’ve had posters up for three years and there are discoloured patches, that might be classified as fair wear depending on tenancy length.

For anything that is genuinely damage rather than dirt, check our guide on deposit deductions and your rights. You should understand what your landlord can and can’t claim for.

What We’d Tell You on the Phone

Same thing we tell every customer who rings in a panic. Most failed inventory issues are fixable within a day. The cost of a professional re-clean is almost always less than the deposit deduction you’d face. And having a professional company’s receipt strengthens your position if there’s still a dispute afterwards.

The tenants who struggle are the ones who do nothing. They get the failed report and freeze. Or they try to clean it themselves a second time, with the same products that didn’t work the first time. Or they just accept the deduction without challenging it.

Don’t be that tenant.

Ring us on 07985 505061 or email hello@bristolcleaningheroes.co.uk. Bristol Cleaning Heroes, 290-294 Southmead Road, BS10 5EN. £2 million insured. We’ll tell you straight whether we can fix it.