How to get your deposit back in Milton Keynes.

Your deposit is not supposed to be sitting in your landlord's account. On an assured shorthold tenancy it goes into one of three government-approved schemes inside 30 days of them taking it: the Tenancy Deposit Scheme, the Deposit Protection Service or MyDeposits. Alongside it you should have received prescribed information naming the scheme and setting out how the money comes back. If none of that ever reached you, ask about it now rather than in your final week.

At the end of the tenancy the money comes back minus whatever deductions you agree to. Where you cannot agree, each scheme runs a free adjudication service that decides the disputed part on the evidence both sides send in, and the undisputed part is released while that happens.

Three tests apply to anything taken off: is it reasonable, is it evidenced, and is it in proportion to the actual problem. Cleaning passes those tests only where the property went back dirtier than the check-in report recorded it, and damage only where the harm is past fair wear and tear. Handing a property back better than you received it is nobody's entitlement.

A blanket clause requiring a professional clean at the end of the tenancy was banned outright by the Tenant Fees Act 2019. A landlord can still charge for cleaning that genuinely needs doing. What they cannot do is treat it as a standing fee that applies whatever state the place is in.

One change since 1 May 2026 is worth knowing about. Under the Renters' Rights Act a landlord cannot unreasonably refuse a pet request, and the pet-insurance backstop originally proposed was dropped, so pet hair, odour and carpet damage now land in the deduction column rather than on an insurer. If you have had an animal in a carpeted property, budget for the carpets: steam cleaning is £30 a room with us and the pet allowance on our list is £20.

One test decides it: is the property as clean as the check-in report says it was when you took it on, fair wear and tear allowed for. Condition is what an adjudicator weighs, not receipts, and no clause can oblige you to buy a professional clean. Our checklist prints out with every line an inventory clerk works through, at no cost, and our guide to doing it yourself sets the hours out realistically.

What paying actually buys sits around the condition rather than in it: the hours a whole property swallows in the week you have least of them, a check-in report full of photographs your own effort will be compared against, a shared house where half the tenants left a fortnight ago, and the paperwork nobody enjoys. An itemised invoice and a timestamped photo set are evidence somebody has already assembled for you. That is the honest version of the trade. Hours and a paper trail, and none of it makes the clean compulsory.

On the day you leave: photograph every room in daylight, photograph the meters, hand back every key and note the time and to whom. If deductions are proposed, ask for the itemisation and the evidence, then reply in writing. You are allowed to disagree, and you are allowed to make a counter-offer.

Where agreement is not coming, take it to your scheme's dispute service, and do it early: each scheme runs a time limit. Four documents do the work, the report from both ends of the tenancy, your dated photographs and any invoice for cleaning. The money in dispute stays put while somebody neutral reads all of it, usually about a month after the last file goes in. It costs a tenant nothing, so a deduction you believe is wrong is worth an evening of your time.