End of tenancy cleaning in Berlin – to a checklist, at a fixed price

At the handover (Wohnungsübergabe), landlords and property managers tend to look where dirt hides: inside the oven, under the cooker hood, in the fridge, on taps and shower screens, in window rebates, behind radiators and along door frames. Those are exactly the points on our end-of-tenancy cleaning checklist – the same one we use to get the furnished apartments we run ready for the next tenant.

Berlin tap water is hard. Limescale on tiles, taps and shower glass is the most common reason for a second round, so we descale bathroom and kitchen properly rather than wiping over it. Whether the flat is accepted is ultimately your landlord’s decision, and nobody can honestly promise it. What we do promise: we clean to the checklist and, on request, record the result in photos.

Unless your lease says otherwise, German law only requires you to return a flat “besenrein” – broom-clean: emptied, with the coarse dirt removed. Many leases, and furnished lets in particular, ask for more. So check your contract before you enquire, and we’ll clean exactly to what it requires.

Painting walls and filling drill holes aren’t cleaning – they count as redecoration (Schönheitsreparaturen). If your lease requires them, our renovation team can do them in the same window as the end of tenancy clean.

Many Berlin Altbau flats have double box windows (Kastendoppelfenster): two sets of casements one behind the other, which means four panes of glass per window instead of two, plus frames, rebates and sills. They take much longer than a modern double-glazed window, so tell us which windows you have when you enquire – a photo is enough.

The price is fixed before we start: tell us the floor area, number of rooms and condition, ideally with a few photos of the kitchen, bathroom and windows. You receive a written fixed price, with travel within Berlin included. For regular cleaning we agree a fixed price per visit.

If the job on site is clearly bigger than discussed – say, a heavily soiled oven that wasn’t in any photo – we talk to you before carrying on. Anything done without your approval is not billed. Cleaning counts as a household-related service for German tax purposes, and we show the labour share separately.

We usually reply within one working day, and an appointment is often possible as soon as the next working day. Ideally, book the end of tenancy clean for the days between moving out and the handover – the flat is empty then and nothing gets dirty again while you carry boxes. Our office at Landhausstraße 31 in Wilmersdorf is staffed Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm.

We clean in all twelve Berlin districts, from Spandau to Marzahn-Hellersdorf, on the same fixed-price principle.