The deposit is your money, held in a blocked account in your name. But until any disagreement is settled it is out of reach, and an argument about an oven rack can lock the whole sum for weeks.
What decides it is almost never an overall impression. It is one person walking through with an order in their head, touching three or four things, and judging the rest from those.
This is that order. Print it, tick it off, and photograph every room when you are done.
The twelve points
The oven — and the three parts that come out
The oven is the first stop in almost every handover, because it is the easiest place to see whether someone did the work or wiped over it.
Rack, tray and side rails are three separate parts and each is washed separately. The side rails usually unclip or unscrew, and that is where the burnt-on grease sits.
The door has two or three panes with a cavity between them. Grease between the panes does not come off with a cloth on the outside. On most ovens the door lifts off and the glass slides out — ten minutes, and the difference between an oven that looks clean and one that is.
Use oven cleaner, leave it the time stated on the bottle, and never scrape with anything harder than plastic.
The extractor filter above the hob
The metal filter sits behind a hatch under the fan and releases with a handle. It goes in the dishwasher on the hottest programme, twice if it needs it.
Paper or carbon filters are replaced, not washed.
This point is worth more than it looks: the filter is what a landlord touches to decide whether the rest of the kitchen was done properly.
Clean the fan housing and the underside of the hood too — grease drips from there.
The silicone seals in bathroom and kitchen
Seals along the bath, the shower corner and the worktop discolour with mould and soap residue. Grey or black-spotted seals read as neglect, not as wear.
Chlorine-based seal cleaner works but needs time: apply, leave for a few minutes, scrub with a soft brush, rinse well.
If the silicone has cracked or come away from the surface, cleaning will not save it. It has to be cut out and re-applied — a small job the landlord will otherwise charge for.
Scrub tile grout with a dish brush, not a cloth. A cloth passes over the top of the joint.
The bathroom drain
Lift the grate. Underneath is a trap that can be removed on almost every modern drain, holding hair, soap and a film that smells once it dries.
This is the point most people skip and the one landlords check most, because it takes three seconds and because the smell comes back in the next tenant’s shower.
Gloves on, take out what is there, brush the pipe as far as you can reach, rinse with hot water.
Do the drain last in the bathroom, not first. Everything you clean above it ends up there.
Window sills, and the channel under the window
Sills get wiped, but the narrow channel the window closes against is nearly always forgotten. It holds sand, dead insects and black dust that sticks in damp.
An old toothbrush and soapy water does it, then a cloth folded over something narrow.
If you clean the glass, clean both sides. One clean and one dirty pane looks worse than two evenly dirty ones.
Clean windows on an overcast day. Sun dries the soap in and leaves streaks.
Skirting, door frames and their top edges
Skirting boards collect dust along their whole length and grease at the bottom in the kitchen, including behind doors that always stand open.
The top edge of a door frame is the one surface nobody sees and everybody checks. Run a finger along it — if it comes away grey, that is the finger the landlord will use too.
The same goes for the top of kitchen units that do not reach the ceiling.
Do the skirting before the floor. Everything you loosen falls down.
Behind and under the appliances
Fridge, cooker and washing machine usually sit on wheels or glides and pull out with a little force and a second pair of hands. Under them is dust, crumbs and something dropped long ago.
Pull out, clean the floor, the sides of the machine and the wall behind. Push back carefully, especially on soft flooring.
The fridge should be handed over empty, switched off and with the door ajar.
This is ten minutes of work, and it is where a handover most often stalls.
Inside cupboards and drawers
Every cupboard is emptied and wiped inside, including the high ones never used. Drawers come right out where they can — crumbs sit at the back, not the front.
Under the drawers and in the runners there is usually more than you expect.
The cupboard under the sink often has a damp mark or an old leak. If it is there, report it rather than cleaning over it — a documented leak is the landlord’s, an undiscovered one becomes yours.
Bathroom cabinets usually have toothpaste on the shelf. It is the first thing seen when the door opens.
Doors, handles and the surfaces people touch
Doors get dirty around the handle and at the bottom where they are pushed open. Both sides, with something that lifts grease rather than dust.
Handles, light switches and sockets are the surfaces everyone touches and few clean — and the most obvious: one yellowed switch in an otherwise clean flat gets noticed.
Frames are cleaned all the way round, not just at the front.
Do not use strong chemicals on painted surfaces — they can take the paint with them.
Thresholds and the transitions between rooms
Thresholds, especially into the bathroom, collect dirt in the gap between threshold and floor. A narrow brush, not a cloth.
The entrance threshold and the one into the storeroom are the dirtiest surfaces in the home, because everything from outside arrives there.
Check they are firmly fixed. A loose threshold is a small repair that becomes yours if nobody mentions it.
The entrance is the first and last thing a landlord sees. It frames everything in between.
Balcony, terrace and outdoor storage
The balcony counts as part of the home: empty, swept and washed. Plant pots, bicycles and furniture you leave behind remain your responsibility.
Rinse or wash the floor and wipe the railing — the inside especially, where a film builds up.
Outdoor and basement storage is emptied completely. Anything left is treated as abandoned and can be charged for removal.
Empty storage a week ahead, not on moving day. There is always more there than you remember.
The drainage holes in balcony doors and windows
At the bottom of balcony door and window frames are small holes that let water out. They are the size of a pencil tip and full of dust, sand and insects.
Blocked, the water stands in the frame, and over time that means damp damage in the timber underneath — the kind found after you have moved out, and billed to you.
Clear them with a toothpick or a straightened paper clip, then pour a little water in to check it runs out.
Nobody expects you to know this one. Done, it signals that the rest was done too.
The order that saves the most time
Work top down, and from the furthest room towards the door. That way you never cross something you have already finished.
- Storage and balcony first — that is where the surprises are.
- Kitchen before bathroom. The kitchen takes longest and has the most parts that need to soak.
- Skirting and frames before floors, in every room.
- Windows on an overcast day.
- Drain and floor last in the bathroom.
- Photograph every room when you finish, with the date. It is the only evidence you have if there is a disagreement later.
What is NOT your responsibility
Normal wear is the landlord’s: paint faded by years of sun, small marks where furniture stood, worn worktops, appliances that have simply aged.
You answer for damage and for missing cleaning. The line is whether it could have been avoided with normal use and ordinary cleaning.
If something is unclear, raise it before the handover and in writing. A disagreement mentioned in advance rarely becomes a deduction.
Written for Norwegian tenancies and the Tenancy Act. Where your contract says otherwise, the contract applies.
Or let us do it
A move-out clean with us is kr 87 per square metre. You give the area, the number of floors and the number of bathrooms, and see the whole sum before you book — no hourly rate, no invoice afterwards.
The approved move-out guarantee comes with it without asking: if the landlord does not approve the clean at the handover, we come back and put it right at no cost. The handover decides, not our own opinion of the job.
See the price for your home