Strata Guide
Sydney Apartment End Of Lease Cleaning: Strata Rules, Lifts And Balconies
Moving out of a Sydney apartment involves more than cleaning. Lift bookings, certificates of currency, balcony rules and window limits all affect your bond, and this guide covers each one.
In This Guide
Start With The Building, Not The Clean
The Certificate Of Currency Explained
What Is Actually Yours To Clean
The Four Areas Agents Check First In Apartments
Balconies And What By-Laws Allow
Windows In High Rise Buildings
Timing Your Clean Around The Building
Apartment Areas Across Sydney
What This Means For Your Bond
Most Sydney end of lease guides assume you are cleaning a house. If you are in an apartment, particularly a strata building in the CBD, Bondi Junction, Chatswood or Parramatta, half your problems are not cleaning problems at all. They are access problems.
Lift bookings, certificates of currency, restricted hours and by-laws about balconies all sit between you and a finished clean. This guide covers what changes when your rental has a building manager.
What apartment tenants need to know
- Most Sydney buildings require a certificate of currency from any contractor, cleaners included
- Lift and loading dock bookings often need several days notice
- Exterior glass above ground floor is usually common property, not your responsibility
- Pressure washing a balcony is restricted under most by-laws
- Glass, tracks and joinery make up more of an apartment clean than a house clean
Start With The Building, Not The Clean
The first call is to your building manager or strata manager, not your cleaner. You need four answers before you book anything.
What access is required for contractors?
Most Sydney buildings need a certificate of currency confirming public liability insurance before anyone works on site. Some also keep a contractor sign-in register or issue a temporary access fob.
Do I need to book the service lift?
If cleaners are bringing a carpet steam cleaner and equipment, many buildings treat that as a contractor movement. Lift bookings commonly need three to seven days notice and can clash with other residents moving on the same weekend.
What hours is work allowed?
Plenty of Sydney buildings restrict contractor and moving activity to weekday business hours, with reduced or no access on Sundays. This alone can decide which day your clean happens.
What is common property versus my lot?
Corridors, the garage, external glass above ground floor and the building facade are almost always common property. Knowing the line protects you if an agent tries to charge you for cleaning it.
Book access before you book the clean
The single most common reason a Sydney apartment clean runs late is a lift booking that was never made. A cleaning team cannot wait three hours for a service lift, and rescheduling at the end of the month is difficult. Sort access first, then lock the cleaning date around it.
The Certificate Of Currency Explained
If you have never rented an apartment before, this request can sound alarming. It is routine.
A certificate of currency is a one page document issued by an insurer confirming a business currently holds public liability insurance. It lists the insured business, the policy number, the amount of cover and the expiry date. Building managers ask for it so that if a contractor damages common property, there is cover behind the work.
What your building manager will look for
- The cleaning business named as the insured party
- A cover amount, commonly $10 million or $20 million
- An expiry date that has not passed
- The document issued by the insurer, not typed by the contractor
Any legitimate Sydney cleaning company can produce one within a day. If a cleaner cannot, that is a useful signal about the business, not a paperwork inconvenience. We carry $20 million public liability cover and send the certificate straight to the building manager when the booking is made.
What Is Actually Yours To Clean
In a strata property your responsibility stops at the boundary of your lot. The practical version for a departing tenant looks like this.
Inside your lot, your responsibility
- Interior glass, frames, sills and sliding door tracks
- The balcony floor, balustrade, drain and inside of the balcony glass
- Every cupboard, wardrobe and built-in joinery interior
- Oven, rangehood, cooktop and the cavity behind appliances
- Carpets, hard floors, skirting boards and air-conditioner filters
- Your storage cage and car space if they are on your lease
Common property, usually not yours
- Corridors, stairwells, foyer and lift interiors
- Exterior glass and the building facade above ground floor
- The garage floor outside your allocated space
- Rubbish room, bin chutes and common area bins
- Roof gutters, awnings and external drainage
If your agent flags something in the second column, ask which by-law makes it your responsibility. In most cases the item is maintained by the owners corporation and the request is simply a template checklist applied to the wrong property type.
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The Four Areas Agents Check First In Apartments
Apartment inspections concentrate on a small number of places, because that is where apartments actually get dirty.
Sliding door and window tracks
Sydney apartments collect grit, sand and dust in tracks, and coastal buildings collect salt with it. Tracks are checked with a finger, not a glance. They need vacuuming, then a detail brush, then a wipe down, not a quick pass.
The balcony
Balconies are treated as a room. That means the floor, the drain, the underside of the balustrade rail, the glass and the wall the barbecue sat against. A balcony that has been ignored for two years is the most common cause of a re-clean request in apartments.
Bathroom ventilation and mould
Many Sydney apartments have internal bathrooms with a single exhaust fan. Silicone lines, grout and the fan cover collect mould quickly. Surface mould is cleaning. Black staining through silicone is a maintenance item, so photograph it and raise it early rather than at handover.
Built-in joinery and mirrored wardrobes
Modern apartments have a lot of built-in storage, and inspections open every door. Shelf interiors, runner tracks and the top edge of mirrored doors all get checked, and they are easy to miss when you are focused on the kitchen.
Balconies And What By-Laws Allow
Balcony cleaning causes more confusion than anything else in a Sydney apartment exit.
Most by-laws restrict pressure washing on balconies. Water and debris run onto the units below, into common property drains and sometimes onto a neighbour's laundry. Some buildings prohibit it outright, others require written approval from the owners corporation. Either way, do not assume.
The workable approach is sweeping first, then washing down by hand with controlled water, then detailing the balustrade, the track and the drain. It takes longer than a pressure washer and is the method that will not put you in dispute with the building.
Check the drain before the inspection
A blocked balcony drain shows up as a water stain on the floor and, in heavy Sydney rain, as a complaint from the unit below. Clearing it takes two minutes and prevents an item appearing on your exit report that has nothing to do with cleanliness.
Windows In High Rise Buildings
Interior glass is yours. Exterior glass above the ground floor almost never is, and it should not be attempted from inside a high rise under any circumstances.
Most Sydney buildings clean external glass on a building-wide schedule using abseilers or a building maintenance unit. If your exit checklist says windows without distinguishing internal from external, confirm in writing with your agent that the requirement is interior glass, frames, sills and tracks. That one email prevents a dispute later.
Our end of lease price includes interior windows, frames, sills and tracks, plus one set of sliding glass doors, with additional sliding door sets at $30 per set. Full scope and pricing sit on the Sydney end of lease cleaning page.
Timing Your Clean Around The Building
Apartment moves have more moving parts than house moves, so the sequence matters.
A workable Sydney apartment timeline
- Two weeks out: ask the building manager about access, lifts and hours
- Ten days out: book removalists and the cleaner around that access window
- Seven days out: send your agent's exit checklist to the cleaner for a fixed quote
- Two days out: confirm the certificate of currency has reached the building manager
- Moving day: empty the lot completely, including storage cage and car space
- Cleaning day: keep power and water connected, hand over keys or arrange access
- After the clean: photograph every room before returning keys
Keeping utilities connected is not a small detail. No power means no vacuum and no steam cleaner, and no hot water means kitchens and bathrooms cannot be cleaned properly. Schedule disconnection for after the clean, not after the move.
Booking a Sydney apartment clean with building access sorted
Send your exit checklist and building requirements together. We will quote a fixed price and get the certificate of currency to your building manager before the day.
Get My Fixed QuoteApartment Areas Across Sydney
Building stock changes what your clean involves.
CBD, Green Square and Zetland towers are newer, with floor-to-ceiling glass, multiple sliding door sets and strict contractor rules. Expect the most paperwork and the most glass.
Bondi Junction high rises combine strata formality with coastal salt film on glass and balustrades. Salt returns to glass within days, so the clean needs to be timed close to the inspection rather than a week before.
Inter-war walk-up flats in Bondi, Bronte and Waverley have no lift and no building manager, which removes the paperwork but adds stairs, original casement windows and painted timber sills that need care rather than speed.
North Shore and Inner West unit blocks sit between the two, usually with a strata manager offsite, a shared laundry and a garage that is common property.
Moving Out Soon? Lock Your Cleaning Slot Before Dates Fill
Our team handles the high-fail areas agents check first, so you can hand over keys with confidence.
Popular move-out dates fill quickly each week.
What This Means For Your Bond
An apartment bond is decided on the same standard as a house, but the failure points are different. The tracks, the balcony and the joinery carry the risk, and the logistics decide whether the clean happens properly or in a rush.
Sort the building access first, confirm in writing what counts as your lot, and keep the utilities on. Those three steps prevent most apartment bond disputes in Sydney before any cleaning begins.
For pricing by property size, see our Sydney end of lease cleaning cost guide, and for how a re-clean guarantee works, read what a bond back guarantee actually covers.
Frequently Asked
Questions Tenants Ask Us
What is a certificate of currency and why does my building want one?
It is a one page document from an insurer confirming a business currently holds public liability insurance, with the policy number, cover amount and expiry date. Most Sydney strata buildings require one from any contractor working on site, including cleaners, before the building manager will release lift or loading dock access. We hold $20 million public liability cover and can send the certificate to your building manager on request.
Do I need to book the lift for an end of lease clean?
For the clean itself, usually not, but many Sydney buildings require it anyway because cleaners arrive with equipment such as a carpet steam cleaner and vacuums. Check your by-laws or ask the building manager. Lift bookings are separate from your removalist booking and often need several days notice, so arrange both at the same time.
Who cleans the outside of apartment windows?
Above ground floor, exterior glass is usually common property maintained by the owners corporation on a building-wide schedule, and it cannot be cleaned safely from inside. Your end of lease clean covers interior glass, frames, sills and tracks. If your agent flags exterior glass on a high floor, point to the by-laws rather than paying for it.
Can I pressure wash my balcony before moving out?
Usually not. Most Sydney by-laws restrict pressure washing on balconies because water and debris run onto the units below and into common property drains. A balcony is cleaned by sweeping, washing down by hand and detailing the balustrade, tracks and drain. We price balcony, deck or patio cleaning at $30 to $64 depending on size.
Is a bond clean different for an apartment than a house?
The inspection standard is the same, but the work distribution is different. Apartments have more glass, sliding door tracks and built-in joinery per square metre, and less outdoor area. Access logistics matter far more. That is why a two bedroom apartment and a two bedroom house can take similar time despite the size difference.