Tenancy deposit disputes 2026: what TDS and DPS data tells us about cleaning claims

Every January the Tenancy Deposit Scheme and the Deposit Protection Service publish their dispute data for the prior year. I read both reports the day they land. The 2025 briefing covers tenancies that ended between April 2024 and March 2025, and it is the cleanest read on what is actually going wrong at checkout.

I have spent the last three weeks re-cutting the figures for AL, WD, SG, HP and EN postcodes using the 142 disputes our own clients faced in the same window. The pattern is consistent, and the changes from 2024 are sharper than the headline numbers suggest.

The headline numbers for 2026

Cleaning beats damage (38 percent), gardening (19 percent) and redecoration (17 percent). It has been the top category every year since 2017. What changed in 2025 is the size of the award: the median cleaning deduction agreed by adjudicators rose from £142 to £186, an 11 percent jump in 12 months.

How Hertfordshire compares

In the 142 disputes our clients went through in the last year, 81 cited cleaning. That is 57 percent, eight points above the national figure. Two reasons. First, the county has a higher share of professionally managed lets through corporate agents, who run tighter inventories. Second, hard water leaves limescale signatures that read as poor cleaning even when the property has been scrubbed.

• AL postcodes (St Albans, Harpenden): 62 percent of disputes cited cleaning, the highest in our dataset.
• WD (Watford, Rickmansworth): 58 percent. Driven by extractor and oven claims in larger family homes.
• SG (Stevenage, Hitchin, Letchworth): 54 percent. Carpet and skirting board lines dominate.
• HP (Hemel Hempstead, Berkhamsted): 51 percent. Closest to the national figure.
• EN (Enfield border, Cheshunt): 49 percent. Smaller flats, fewer surfaces, fewer claims.

What wins a dispute in 2026

Three pieces of evidence move adjudicators, in this order of weight.

1. 1A dated professional cleaning invoice that itemises rooms. Generic invoices for 'one clean' carry half the weight.
2. 2Time-stamped photographs of the cleaned property, taken before the cleaner left and matched to the inventory rooms.
3. 3The check-in inventory in full. Many tenants only have the check-out report, which favours the landlord by default.

What loses a dispute

• Wear and tear claims dressed up as cleaning. Limescale that builds up over a 3-year tenancy is fair wear and most adjudicators reject the full deduction.
• Vague invoices. 'Cleaning services £180' does not survive a contested claim.
• Self-clean photographs without a timestamp. The landlord will argue they were taken earlier.
• Cleaning done by a friend with a receipt on a notepad. Adjudicators discount these to about 40 percent of face value.

What the landlord side looks like in 2026

Landlords are losing more cleaning disputes than they used to. In 2020, the landlord side won 64 percent of cleaning claims. In the 2025 briefing that fell to 51 percent. Two drivers: tenants are wiser about evidence, and TDS has tightened the 'betterment' rule that stopped landlords claiming the full cost of a deep clean when the property was already in fair condition at move-in.

A 5-step plan for tenants in 2026

1. 1Photograph every room on the day you move in. Match every photo to a numbered line on the inventory.
2. 2Book a professional end of tenancy clean for the day before you hand back keys.
3. 3Ask for the invoice itemised by room, dated, on letterhead, with a VAT number if applicable.
4. 4Walk the property with the cleaner. Photograph each cleaned room. Save photos to a cloud folder with timestamps preserved.
5. 5Send the invoice and photo folder to the landlord with your key return email. This makes a dispute much harder to open.

What to watch in the rest of 2026

TDS launches a standardised photographic inventory template in October. It will require a fixed list of 38 spots photographed at check-in and check-out. The cleaning categories will be scored separately from damage for the first time, which should make adjudications faster and slightly more tenant-friendly. Watch the kitchen extractor and the silicone joints: those two single items already drive nearly a quarter of all cleaning awards.