How to sign off a cleaning: a handover checklist

Floors, including corners and areas under furniture; bathrooms and fixtures; the kitchen and appliance exteriors; mirrors and glass without streaks; whether the rubbish has been removed; no odour.

Check in good light: in weak light streaks on glass and dust on surfaces are not visible. It helps to follow one route — from the entrance, room by room — so nothing is missed.

The scope of work and the schedule. Then it is easier to compare the result with what was agreed.

For regular cleaning it is useful to attach a list by area: what is cleaned every time, what weekly, what monthly. You can see an example in the sample contract.

Name the exact place and what is wrong: “streaks on the bathroom mirror”, not “badly cleaned”. That makes the comment easy to understand and act on next time.

With regular cleaning you do not have to check everything every time. It is easier to pick 3–4 check points, for example the bathroom, the kitchen, the entrance and one work area, look at them after every clean, and walk through the whole site once a month.

Here the check is more detailed: windows and frames, skirting boards and doors, tile grout, radiators, the inside of cupboards if that was ordered. Compare the result with the scope of work: if something was not in the order, it is not a complaint but extra work.

Both sides need it: you see what was done under the contract, and the company understands what matters to you. The earlier a comment is made, the easier it is to act on next time.

After the cleaning we send a photo report, which is easy to compare with what you see on site.