Question 1

How often should the communal areas in a block of flats be cleaned?

Accepted Answer

There is no statutory frequency. It is set by your lease, your fire risk assessment and the traffic through the front door, and that is genuinely different between a six-flat conversion and a sixty-flat building over two cores. As a starting point: entrances and lift cars earn the most frequent attention because that is where the soiling and the fingerprints arrive, stairs and corridors usually run at the same frequency or half it, and bin stores need a schedule of their own. We recommend a frequency at the walk-round and write it into the specification rather than leaving it to be agreed later.

Question 2

Will you move bikes, buggies and bulky items off the stairs and corridors?

Accepted Answer

No — we report them, with photographs, on every visit record. Two reasons. They are residents' property, and whether your block runs a zero-tolerance or a managed approach to storage in the common parts is a decision for you and your fire risk assessment, not for a cleaner. And it matters: article 14 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires, where necessary to safeguard relevant persons, that routes to emergency exits and the exits themselves are kept clear at all times. What we can give you is a dated, photographed record that something was on an escape route on a particular day — which is what makes a letter to a leaseholder stick.

Question 3

Do you check the fire doors?

Accepted Answer

We are not fire door inspectors and we certify nothing. That duty sits with the responsible person: under regulation 10 of the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, buildings with storeys over 11 metres require quarterly checks of all fire doors in the common parts, including self-closing devices, plus annual checks of flat entrance doors on a best-endeavour basis, and every multi-occupied residential building with two or more sets of domestic premises must give residents information on the importance of fire doors. Where a weekly cleaner genuinely helps is between those checks — a door wedged open, a damaged closer, a door that no longer latches — and those go on the visit record for you to act on.

Question 4

What stops a freshly mopped staircase being a hazard?

Accepted Answer

Method, not signage. HSE is blunt about it: "Signs and cones only warn of a hazard, they do not prevent people from entering the area", and if the spill is not visible they are usually ignored. Its advice is to stop access to smooth wet floors using barriers, locked doors or cleaning in sections. In a block the first two are rarely available, because the stair is the only way out — so we clean in sections. Stairs in halves with a dry side kept walkable, corridors in runs, and microfibre flat mopping, which puts down far less water than a bucket and leaves a floor touch-dry in minutes.

Question 5

Our cleaning contract is going out to tender. What do you need to give us for a section 20 consultation?

Accepted Answer

A specification and three numbers. Under regulation 4 of the Service Charges (Consultation Requirements) (England) Regulations 2003, an agreement running more than twelve months is a qualifying long-term agreement where any one leaseholder's contribution would exceed £100 in an accounting period; regulation 6 sets the threshold for qualifying works at £250. Where the requirements are neither complied with nor dispensed with by the tribunal, section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 limits the relevant contributions the landlord can recover. So our proposal arrives as a written specification, an annual figure and a per-unit figure — and we will quote the same specification on a twelve-month term if you would rather keep the agreement outside the long-term definition. We are a cleaning contractor, not your solicitor: running the consultation is yours or your agent's job.

Question 6

Do you jet-wash the bin store, the paths or the car park?

Accepted Answer

No. We do not offer pressure washing, and we would rather say that than quote for it and sub it out. In a refuse area we do the cleaning half: floors swept and washed by hand, bin exteriors and chute hoppers wiped, hard surfaces sanitised and deodorised, and the state of the store reported when it fills with things that are not waste. We also do not take waste off site — that needs a registered waste carrier, and the GOV.UK duty of care keeps sorting, secure storage, carrier checks and recycling with whoever is responsible for the building. External hard-surface jetting, gutters and roofs are separate trades.

Question 7

What about the windows?

Accepted Answer

Internal communal glass is ours — entrance door glass, lobby screens, stairwell windows and mirrors we can reach safely from floor level, cleaned on the schedule in your specification. External glass, and anything needing a cradle, a pole-fed system or rope access, is a specialist job that sits outside this service. Most blocks run a separate external window contract and we are happy to schedule around it.

Question 8

Do you clean the lift?

Accepted Answer

The car, yes: floor, doors, mirrors, handrails and the control panel — worked carefully around the panel and the door tracks, because water and cleaning solution sitting in a track is how a door starts misbehaving. The shaft, the pit and anything mechanical belong to your lift maintenance contractor, and we report what we see rather than opening anything.

Question 9

Are your operatives vetted, and how do they get in?

Accepted Answer

Every operative is DBS-checked, uniformed, insured and trained. Access arrangements — fobs, key safes, intercom codes, bin store keys — are agreed and documented at the walk-round, and we hold the minimum needed to do the job. In a residential building continuity matters more than it does in an office: residents see the cleaner more often than they see their managing agent, so the same team on the same day is part of the service rather than a bonus.

Question 10

Is this the right service for an HMO or a converted house?

Accepted Answer

Often our landlord and letting agent cleaning is the better fit, because a shared house brings void and between-tenancy work with it and the communal duty there is a different one — regulation 7 of the Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation (England) Regulations 2006 puts the common parts of a licensed HMO on the manager. Purpose-built blocks, converted blocks held on separate leases and above-shop flats belong here. If you hold both, we will quote both on one schedule with a single point of contact.

Communal Area Cleaning for Blocks of Flats in Berkshire & Surrey

Every scheduled communal visit

Periodic and one-off work

Putting three block cleaning quotes on the same basis

How it works

Block walk-round

Written specification per core

Scheduled, recorded visits

Reported, then reviewed

Who it's for

Eco-friendly products, as standard

How long it takes

Pricing

Where we provide communal area cleaning

Related services

Commercial Cleaning

Office Cleaning

Landlord & Letting Agent Cleaning

Communal Area Cleaning — frequently asked questions

Ready for a cleaner, fresher space?