If you are responsible for a building, a block or a portfolio, you are not buying a clean. You are buying a schedule that holds — the same people, the same days, the same standard in unit 4 as in unit 44, and one invoice at the end of the month. This page is about that arrangement. For a single office, see office and commercial cleaning.
What a contract actually buys you
The honest answer is a dedicated team, and everything else follows from it. A cleaning company can only promise you the same faces every week if it can promise those people guaranteed hours — and it can only do that if the work is regular and committed. That is the whole mechanism, and it is why a contract is better cleaning rather than just cheaper cleaning.
- Named people, named cover. You are told who is on your site. Holiday and sickness are covered by a named second who has worked the building before they cover it — not whoever is free that morning.
- One schedule, one scope, one contact. Agreed per unit or per floor and written down, so a new tenant, a new manager or a new cleaner does not restart the conversation.
- One monthly invoice across every property, however many there are, with the units listed.
- A fixed monthly figure after a walk round, in writing, and it does not move because a bin was fuller than usual.
- Directly employed, never agency. PAYE, DBS checked, right-to-work verified, NDA signed as standard, £5,000,000 public and employers’ liability.
What it costs, and the one thing we discount for
Our published rate is £26 an hour for housekeeping and from £30 for offices and commercial premises, quoted as a fixed monthly figure.
On a contract the number moves with volume and term, and we will tell you exactly why rather than calling it a discount. Sixty apartments in one building removes the travel between jobs — the ten minutes each end, several times a day, that sits inside every hourly rate in this industry and that nobody itemises. That is a real cost that genuinely disappears when the work is concentrated, and it is the only thing we will move the rate for.
What we will not do is quote below what it costs to hold a second trained person for cover. A large contract with no cover fails in its first bad week, and a price that cannot pay for cover is a price that guarantees it. If the figure needs to come down further we would rather talk about term length or the volume minimum than about the rate.
VAT. We are not currently VAT registered, so no VAT is chargeable on the figures we quote. If we register during the term, VAT would be added at the prevailing rate. That sentence appears in every contract quotation we issue, because a twelve-month price that quietly changes is not a price.
Who this is for
Blocks, developments and serviced apartments
Regular housekeeping across every unit on a set rota, communal parts on their own schedule, and a standard that is the same in the studio on the ground floor as in the penthouse. Where there is a lockable cupboard on site we will normally propose supplying the products and equipment ourselves and including them in the rate — with no travel and nothing to carry it costs almost nothing per visit and it is the only way to keep every unit genuinely consistent.
Managing agents and block managers
Communal areas, bin stores, entrance halls and stairwells on a fixed schedule, with the leaseholders’ question — what exactly are we paying for? — answerable from the scope document rather than from memory. We are happy to attend an AGM and explain it.
Landlords and letting agents with several properties
Fortnightly communal cleaning in shared houses, turnarounds between tenancies, ovens and carpets as they come up, all on one monthly invoice with the same two people at every address. In NW6 and NW10 this is most of what we do.
Offices, clinics and studios with more than one site
The same contract across every site, worked before eight or after six, with one schedule and one point of contact rather than a separate arrangement per address.
How a contract starts
One. We walk the building or a representative sample of the properties. Free, and it takes an hour or two rather than a five-minute look round.
Two. You get a written proposal: the scope per unit, the frequency, the hours, the team, the cover arrangement, the fixed monthly figure and the VAT position. Nothing verbal.
Three. A trial period if you want one — usually a month, at the same terms — because a building is a long commitment and you should see the work before you sign one.
Four. A named team, a start date, and a single person to ring when something is wrong. Which it occasionally will be, and the measure of a contractor is what happens then, not what is in the brochure.
What we are not
We are a small directly-employed company in North West London, not a national facilities contractor. That is the right answer for a building of sixty apartments and the wrong answer for a campus of six thousand people, and we would rather say so at the first meeting than be discovered in month three. If your site needs round-the-clock cover across multiple trades, you want an FM company and we will tell you that.
Tell us about the building
Call and describe it, or send the number of units, the frequency you have in mind and the access arrangements. We will walk it once and put a fixed monthly figure in writing.