UPDATE: Tribunal says Foxtons’ cleaning fee was prohibited payment

A Tribunal has inititally sided with a tenant after he was charged a cleaning fee by Foxtons when he left an apartment it managed in London.

This follows his claim that it constituted a prohibited payment under the 2019 Tenant Fees Act. Foxtons has contested the decision, saying it did not receive the paperwork from the court and has requested that the case is reconsidered.

The case began when renter Adam Zeidan applied to the Tribunal for the recovery of the £240 fee and initially won, but after being alerted to the case by The Neg, Foxtons is now looking into the matter and has contacted the Tribunal.

Zeidan lived in an apartment within a purpose-built block in central Croydon, South London managed by the agency.

He argued at the Tribunal that a moving-out professional cleaning fee is not a permitted payment within the Act, claiming that the payment was an obligatory request listed on the ‘automated mobile app’ which all Foxtons tenants must use to complete both check ins and check outs of a property since the firm recently went ‘all digital’.

Zeidan said he was unable to check out without paying the fee in advance. He provided a copy of the invoice and confirmation that the payment had been received on 8 September 2020. The cleaning was booked for 30 September 2020.

Prohibited

The tenant argued that this was a prohibited fee under the Act and that his original rental contract made no mention of the fee. Tribunal member Mrs E Flint FRICS awarded him the £240,

A spokesperson for Foxtons says: “As a result of a procedural court error, Foxtons was not aware that any claim had been commenced. We are currently considering the matter. Our system does not oblige tenants to pay for a clean, this is always optional.”

UPDATE

Following a request from Foxtons the court has now withdrawn the original decision pending an update or further decision.