Table of Contents
The short answer
A professional clean cannot promise you a deposit. It can take cleaning off the list of things there are to argue about, and cleaning is the part of a handover you control most easily. Whoever inspects the home, landlord, agent or property manager, tends to look in the same places: the hood and the hob, inside the cupboards, the taps and the shower glass, the walls, the floor along the skirting boards, the window tracks and the AC vents.
Three things decide how a handover goes, and only one of them is cleaning. Your tenancy contract decides what condition the home has to be returned in. The state of the walls and fittings decides whether anything needs repair or paint. The clean deals with everything else, and it has to happen at the right point: after the movers and the painter, before the inspection.
IHR Dream Cleaning books a move-out clean as a deep clean of the empty home, with at least 2 cleaners for 3 hours each: AED 180 with your own products or AED 210 with ours, VAT included. We cannot guarantee a landlord's decision, and damage and repairs are outside cleaning. What we can do is clean to the points an inspection looks at, and come back for any cleaning point reported within 24 hours.
Start with the contract and the landlord's own list
This guide is about cleaning and preparation. It is not legal advice, and it does not say what a landlord may or may not keep from a deposit. That is decided by your tenancy contract and by the law, not by a cleaning company. Three documents tell you what your own handover will be judged against, and all three are worth having in your hands a month before you leave.
- Your tenancy contract. Read the clauses on the condition of the property at the end of the lease. Look for what it says about cleaning, painting, servicing the AC, pest control, and the keys and access cards. Contracts differ, and a sentence in yours outranks anything written here.
- The landlord's or agent's handover checklist. Ask for it in writing. Some property managers use a standard form for move-out inspections, and seeing it in advance tells you exactly what will be looked at.
- The record of how you received the home. If there was a move-in inspection report, or you took photos on the day you arrived, find them now. They show which marks were already there.
Where the official information is
Lease contracts in Abu Dhabi are handled through government services provided by the Department of Municipalities and Transport. The services for amending, cancelling and closing a lease contract are listed on the Abu Dhabi Government's TAMM housing and property pages, as published in October 2026. If you and the landlord disagree about the deposit itself, that is a matter for the contract and the official channels, and the point at which to take advice from someone qualified to give it.
Dirt, wear and damage are three different things
Almost every mark an inspector notes falls into one of three groups. Sort them before you spend anything.
- Dirt: grease, limescale, dust, soap film and marks that wipe off. Cleaning removes it, and this is the only group a cleaning company can put right.
- Wear: paint dulled where a sofa stood, grout darkened with age, a carpet flattened along the walkway. Cleaning improves some of it and cannot reverse it. How ordinary wear is treated at handover is a question for your contract and your landlord.
- Damage: a cracked tile, a burn on the worktop, a broken hinge, holes in the wall. This needs repair or replacement, and no amount of cleaning changes that.
Where an inspection looks first
An inspector does not look at the middle of the living-room floor. They open things, run a finger along things and look where dirt hides. Our move-out page lists the four things landlords most often check: kitchen grease and the extractor hood, limescale in the bathrooms, marks on the walls, and dust in the AC vents and on the sills. The parts below take those, and the rest of the home, in the order a walk-through usually goes.
Kitchen
Most inspections start in the kitchen, and the hood is the first thing touched. Grease collects on its underside, in the filters and on the wall behind the hob, then on the tops of the wall cabinets, where nobody looks until a hand goes up there. A kitchen can look clean from the doorway and still fail at the hood.
- Extractor hood inside and out, and the filters where they come out.
- Hob, burners or rings, and the wall and splashback behind them.
- Inside every cupboard and drawer, including the shelf edges.
- Tops of the wall cabinets and the top of the fridge.
- Sink, tap base and drainer, free of scale.
- Oven and fridge, if they belong to the property. Say when you book if you want them cleaned inside, so that the time is allowed for it.
- A fridge that is switched off: emptied, wiped dry and left with the door ajar. Closed and unpowered, it soon smells and grows mould in this climate.
Bathrooms
Hard water makes the bathrooms the second test. Scale builds on the tap bases, the shower head, the glass screen and the tiles below the shower. Most of it comes off with a descaler and time. Glass that has carried scale for years can be etched, which means the surface itself is damaged and stays cloudy after the scale has gone. We tell you before starting if a screen looks like that, so nobody expects new glass from a clean.
- Taps, shower heads and screens descaled.
- Toilet inside, outside, around the base and behind.
- Grout lines and the corners of the shower.
- Silicone joints cleaned, and looked at honestly: black that sits inside the silicone does not clean out, and the joint has to be replaced, which is a grout and silicone repair.
- Mirror, glass shelves and the inside of the vanity cupboard.
- The exhaust fan cover, and the floor drain cover free of hair.
Walls, doors and switches
Walls are where cleaning ends and painting begins, and that boundary has its own section below. At the inspection the points are scuffs at furniture height, handprints around light switches and door handles, marks behind where the bed and sofa stood, tape or hook residue, and nail or screw holes. Doors are checked on both faces, along the top edge and around the handle.
Floors, skirting boards and wardrobes
With the furniture gone the floor shows its edges. Dust lines mark where each piece stood, and the corners and the strip along the skirting boards hold what the mop never reached. Inside the wardrobes, the top shelf and the base are where a hand is run. Floors are cleaned last in the visit, so that nothing from the higher work falls back onto them.
Windows, balcony and AC vents
Sliding-door tracks fill with sand, and it shows the moment someone slides the door. The sills, the inside of the glass and the balcony floor and rail are taken in at the same glance. Glass is cleaned where it can be reached safely from inside or from the balcony. AC vent covers are wiped as part of the clean. If the ducts behind them blow dust back out within minutes, that is a separate job, AC duct cleaning, and it is better to know before the inspector switches the AC on.
Smell
A home is judged in the first breath at the door. Cooking, smoke, pets, a bin left for the last week and a closed fridge all leave a smell that a visual clean does not remove. Empty every bin, wipe out the bin cupboard, leave the fridge open and run the extractors. Curtains and carpets that hold smoke usually improve a great deal with cleaning. Walls that hold it may need washing down and repainting.
Cleaning, repair or paint: which pile each problem belongs in
Sorting the problems early is what saves money. A cleaner booked to remove something that needs a painter is wasted, and so is a painter booked for a wall that would have wiped clean.
| What you see | Usually solved by | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Grease on hood, hob and cabinets | Cleaning | Part of a move-out clean |
| White scale on taps and glass | Cleaning | Etched glass stays cloudy |
| Black line in shower silicone | Cleaning, then replacement | Mould inside silicone stays |
| Dark grout lines | Cleaning | Missing grout needs regrouting |
| Scuffs and handprints on walls | Wiping, then touch-up | Depends on the paint finish |
| Nail and screw holes | Filling and paint | Not cleaning |
| Stains on a fitted carpet | Carpet cleaning | Old stains may only lighten |
| Broken hinge or handle | Repair | Quoted from photos |
| Cracked tile, burnt worktop | Repair or replacement | Ask the landlord first |
What we do about the other two piles
Cleaning covers cleaning. Repairs, repainting and replacing damaged items are outside it, though our maintenance team can quote for them: small fixes through the handyman service, quoted free from photos, and walls through the painting service described below. Carpets and curtains that stay with the home are priced by the item, at AED 10 a square metre for carpet and AED 30 for a curtain panel steamed in place, and are 10% off when booked with the move-out clean.
Before paying for any repair, ask the landlord or agent whether they want it done by you at all. Some prefer their own contractor, and a repair they did not ask for may not be one they accept.
Walls: wipe, touch up or repaint
Walls cause more uncertainty at handover than anything else, because a wall can be dirty, worn or damaged and look the same from across the room. Work through it in this order.
First, find out what wipes off
Dampen a clean white microfibre cloth with water and a drop of washing-up liquid, and try a mark in a low, hidden place. Wipe gently in one direction. Finger marks, light scuffs from bags and furniture and most pencil come away. Stop as soon as paint colour shows on the cloth or the patch turns shinier than the wall around it.
How far you can go depends on the paint. Matt emulsion, the usual finish on walls and ceilings, marks easily and polishes to a visible shine when it is rubbed. Washable and silk finishes take a gentle wipe much better. A melamine sponge works by fine abrasion: it removes the mark by removing a little paint, so on matt paint it can leave a pale or glossy patch that shows more than the scuff did. Use it lightly or not at all. Our team wipes light scuffs as part of a move-out clean. Marks that need more than that are for paint.
When a touch-up works, and when it shows
A touch-up disappears only when three things match: the colour, the sheen and the age of the paint. Leftover paint from the same tin, on a wall painted fairly recently, usually blends. A new tin of the same named colour on a wall that has had years of sun and AC often does not, because the old paint has shifted and the new patch has a slightly different sheen. The patch that looked invisible from the front shows as a rectangle when you look along the wall towards the window.
Two habits improve the odds. Fill and sand holes flush and prime the filler before painting, or the filled spot dries duller than the paint around it. And where a patch will not blend, paint the whole wall from corner to corner. A complete wall in a very slightly different shade is far less noticeable than a patch in the middle of one.
If you do not know the colour, do not guess. For a touch-up we match the existing colour where the original paint is known, or from a sample on site.
When it has to be a repaint
Repaint when the marks are on most walls, when a room has been a different colour during your tenancy, when cooking or smoke has yellowed the paint, or when your contract or landlord asks for it. Landlords here often ask for the walls to be returned in their original condition, and rented homes are commonly repainted at move-out. Whether that falls to you, and to what standard, is one of the things to read in your contract and confirm with the landlord before you spend money on a touch-up or on a full repaint.
Our wall painting service quotes by wall area, paint type and condition. Small touch-ups can often be quoted from photos, and a larger job after a site visit. If the choice of paint has been left to you, the differences between finishes, including washable paint and paint for humid rooms, are explained in choosing wall paint for an Abu Dhabi home.
Paint first, clean second
Filling and sanding make dust, and rollers leave specks on floors, sockets and skirting boards. Painting after the clean means cleaning twice. Book the painter for the days after the movers, and the clean for the day after the painter has finished and taken up the dust sheets.
The order of the last few weeks
Most handover trouble is timing: the clean done before the movers, the painter arriving after the clean, the inspection on the day the electricity was cut. This order avoids it.
- About a month before: read the contract clauses on handover, ask the landlord or agent for their checklist, and agree an inspection date.
- Two weeks before: walk the home with the checklist and sort every mark into cleaning, repair or paint. Send photos for any repair or painting quote.
- Book the clean. Visits can be booked up to 30 days ahead. Leases change hands most in the summer and at the end of the school year, so in those months book at least a week ahead.
- Moving day: everything out, including the balcony, the storage room and the rubbish. Empty and defrost the fridge.
- Repairs and painting, in the empty home.
- The clean, after the painter and before the inspection. The day before is the usual choice. A gap of two or three days leaves more time to put right a repair or paint point, as long as you check the cleaning yourself on the day it is done.
- Your own walk-through on the same day, in daylight, with the landlord's checklist in your hand.
- The inspection, then the keys.
Keep the power, the water and the access until the end
The team needs electricity, water and AC to clean. Do not close the utility account or hand back the access cards before the clean is done. Tell us the building's rules on parking, the loading bay and the service lift, because many towers want the lift booked for jobs with machines. If you have already left, leave the keys with the concierge or with someone you trust and name a contact who can answer a question on the day.
If the team travels to the property and cannot get in, a charge of AED 60 applies. Moving or cancelling a booking is free up to 6 hours before the start. Handover dates slip often, so move the clean as soon as you know.
Older buildings in the city centre
In the older mid-rise blocks downtown, where a move-out clean ahead of the deposit return is one of the jobs we are asked for most, two things change the plan. Kitchens and bathrooms that have seen many tenancies need more time than the same rooms in a newer tower. And access is slower: street parking is paid and busy, and lifts can be small, so tell us the floor and whether there is a lift. The area notes are on our Madinat Zayed page.
What a move-out clean covers, and what to tell us
A move-out clean is a deep clean of an empty home, the same job as a move-in clean seen from the other end of the tenancy. The team cleans the kitchen inside and out, descales the bathrooms, wipes inside the cupboards and wardrobes, cleans skirting boards, doors, frames, switches, sills, tracks and AC vent covers, and finishes with the floors. The full room-by-room list is in our move-in and move-out cleaning checklist. Use that as your tick sheet on the day.
What makes the difference is what the team knows before it arrives.
- The number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and any balcony, terrace, maid's room or storage room.
- Whether the home will be completely empty. A furnished unit can be cleaned, but more slowly, because furniture is cleaned around and not behind.
- The landlord's checklist or snag list, and any points already raised.
- Appliances that stay with the property, and whether you want the oven and the fridge cleaned inside.
- Carpets, curtains or mattresses that stay.
- The inspection date and time.
- Photos of the kitchen and the bathrooms, which help us plan the hours.
What it costs
The clean is priced by the length of the visit: AED 55 for 1 hour, AED 65 for 2 hours, AED 30 an hour for 3–4 hours and AED 25 for each hour after that, per cleaner, with AED 5 per cleaner-hour more for our materials, VAT included. Our published hours guide for a deep clean gives the starting point for each size of home, with your own products and with ours.
- Studio or one-bedroom apartment: 2 cleaners for 3 hours each, AED 180 or AED 210.
- Two-bedroom apartment: 2 cleaners for 4 hours each, AED 240 or AED 280.
- Three-bedroom apartment: 2 cleaners for 5 hours each, AED 290 or AED 340.
- Villa with four or five bedrooms: 4 cleaners for 5 hours each, AED 580 or AED 680.
What moves the hours
Condition moves those figures more than size does. Years of kitchen grease, heavy limescale, extra bathrooms, a balcony and a maid's room all add time. By moving day your own vacuum and products are usually packed, which is the practical reason to book with our materials. If the home needs longer on the day, the team leader asks you first, and extra time is added in 30-minute steps only with your approval. Every figure is on the price list.
Check it yourself before the inspector does
Do your own inspection on the day of the clean, while the team is still there if you can. The team leader checks the finished work before leaving and walks the property with you, or sends photos if you have gone. Use the method an inspector would.
- Go in daylight, with the lights on as well.
- Open every cupboard, drawer and wardrobe, and run a hand along the top shelf.
- Put a hand on top of the hood, then look underneath it.
- Look at the shower glass from the side, against the light.
- Slide every door and window and look into the tracks.
- Look along each wall towards the window for scuffs and for touch-ups that show.
- Switch on the AC and stand under a vent for a minute.
- Take dated photos or a slow video of every room, with the cupboards open.
Keep a record
Photos taken after the clean cost nothing and settle most later questions about how the home looked when you left. Keep them with your move-in photos, the cleaning invoice and any repair receipts. At the inspection itself, ask for the points raised to be written down, and ask which of them are cleaning.
If the inspection raises something
If a cleaning point is raised, send us the details within 24 hours of the visit and we arrange a re-clean of that area at no charge. Photos help but are not a condition. That window is the practical reason to hold the inspection on the day after the clean. If the inspection has to be later in the week, your own walk-through against the landlord's checklist on the day of the clean does the same job.
The re-clean covers the scope agreed for the booking. If the landlord asks for something that was never part of it, such as the inside of an oven that was not mentioned or a carpet wash, that is quoted as new work. Points that are repairs or paint go to the maintenance team for a quote.
If the disagreement is about money and not about dirt, it has left the ground a cleaner can help with. Go back to the contract and to the official services linked near the top of this guide.
Doing it yourself, or booking a team
A move-out clean is work a tenant can do, and in a small flat that has been kept well it is a reasonable weekend. Four questions decide it.
- Time. Our hours guide puts a deep clean of a one-bedroom flat at 6 cleaner-hours for people who do it every day. Working alone and without practice, allow a good deal more, and remember that it has to fit between the movers leaving and the inspection.
- Equipment. By moving day the vacuum, the mop and the step ladder are usually on the lorry. You need them, plus a degreaser, a descaler, a glass cleaner and a stack of clean cloths.
- The hard parts. The hood filters, the shower glass and the insides of the cupboards take most of the time. If you do part of the job yourself, those are the parts worth handing over.
- What the landlord expects. If your contract or the landlord asks for a professional clean, or for an invoice, doing it yourself does not meet that, however good the result.
Three cautions if you do it yourself
Never mix cleaning products. Bleach with an acidic descaler, or with ammonia, releases toxic gas, and a closed bathroom is the worst place for it. Use one product, rinse it away, then use the next, with the extractor running and the door open.
Keep descalers off marble and other natural stone. They are acids, and acid etches stone, leaving dull patches that only polishing removes. On stone use a neutral cleaner.
Do not lean out to clean the outside of a window, and do not climb higher than a step ladder. Glass that cannot be reached safely from inside or from the balcony is left to the building's own contractor.
Common questions
Will a professional clean get my deposit back?
It removes the most common cleaning deductions, which is the part a clean can influence. It cannot settle damage, repairs, repainting or anything else your contract makes you responsible for, and no cleaning company can promise how a landlord will decide. Treat any promise of a guaranteed deposit with suspicion.
Do I need to be there for the clean?
No. Many customers have already left. Arrange access, name a contact, and we send photos of the finished property. If you can be there for the last half hour, the walk-through with the team leader is the most useful part of the visit.
Can a furnished flat be cleaned for handover?
Yes, but more slowly, because furniture is cleaned around and not behind. Tell us when you book. Sofas, mattresses and curtains that belong to the landlord are separate jobs, priced by the item.
The landlord wants proof of a professional clean. Can you provide it?
A tax invoice is available on request for any booking. Ask for it when you book if you know it will be needed, and check with the landlord or agent exactly what they want to see.
How far ahead should I book?
As soon as the inspection date is fixed. Visits can be booked up to 30 days ahead, and in the summer and at the end of the school year a week is the least to rely on. A same-day booking needs about 2 hours' notice and depends on a free slot.
Does the AC need servicing before handover?
Only your contract and your landlord can answer that, so read the clause and ask what they expect to see. Vent covers are wiped as part of the clean. AC servicing, at AED 129 per unit, and duct cleaning are separate jobs with their own bookings.
Booking the clean
Fix the inspection date first, then count back from it: your own walk-through, the clean, the painter, the movers. Each one needs the step before it to be finished.
The move-out cleaning page sets out the scope and the usual team for each size of home. You choose the team, the hours and the materials online, the price is shown before you confirm, and payment is by card once we confirm your booking. We work every day from 8 AM – 8 PM, at the same price on Fridays and public holidays. Book the move-out clean for the day before your inspection.
