How to start a holiday-let cleaning business in the UK

Holiday-let cleaning is a good business to start. The work repeats, hosts need you more than you need any one of them, and a reliable company in an area with plenty of short lets rarely has to advertise for long. It is also not the same as domestic cleaning, and the differences are where new companies come unstuck.

How it differs from domestic cleaning

• Deadlines. A house clean can run over. A turnover has a guest arriving at three.
• Weekends and holidays. Your busiest days are Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and every school holiday.
• Laundry. Every clean comes with beds to change and towels to wash.
• Nobody is home. You work from notes and a key safe, and nobody tells you what you missed until the review.
• Your customer is a business. Hosts and property managers expect invoices, insurance and the same standard every time.
• Seasons. In much of the UK, August can be several times busier than January. Plan your cash and your staffing for both.

Set the business up properly

Register

Most people start as a sole trader, which means registering with HMRC for Self Assessment, or set up a limited company at Companies House. Both are explained on GOV.UK, and an accountant can tell you in half an hour which suits you. Open a separate bank account for the business either way, and keep every receipt from the first day.

Insurance

• Public liability insurance covers damage or injury you cause while working. It isn't a legal requirement, but hosts and agents will ask for the certificate before giving you keys.
• Employers' liability insurance is a legal requirement as soon as you employ anyone.
• Check the policy covers what you actually do: holding keys, damage to the things you are cleaning, and working in a property when nobody is there.
• Tell your car insurer you use the vehicle for business.

Data protection

You will hold hosts' details, addresses and key-safe codes. Most businesses that keep personal information need to pay a small annual fee to the Information Commissioner's Office; its website has a checker. More practically, decide where codes are kept, and it should not be a group chat.

Taking on cleaners

Whether someone is employed or self-employed is not a choice you and they can simply agree on. It depends on how the work really happens: who sets the hours, who provides the equipment, whether they can send someone else in their place. HMRC has an online tool for checking employment status, and getting it wrong is expensive.

If you employ people, you will need to:

• Check their right to work in the UK before they start.
• Run a payroll and pay at least the minimum wage, which includes the time spent travelling between jobs.
• Give paid holiday, and enrol those who qualify in a workplace pension.
• Assess the risks of the work, including the chemicals you use and working alone in empty properties. The Health and Safety Executive publishes guidance for cleaning businesses.

Start with fewer people than you think and pay them properly. In this business a cleaner who turns up every Saturday is worth more than any amount of marketing.

Finding your first hosts

1. 1Look at who is already letting near you. Search your town on the booking sites. Listings with reviews that mention cleanliness, good or bad, are hosts who care about it.
2. 2Talk to letting agents and property managers. One who manages twenty properties is worth twenty hosts, and they always need a backup cleaning company.
3. 3Join local host groups on Facebook and answer questions before you advertise. Hosts ask each other for cleaner recommendations constantly.
4. 4Start with a few properties close together. Travel between jobs is unpaid time. Five properties in one town beat ten spread across a county.
5. 5Ask for a recommendation after a month of good cleans. Most of your growth will come from one host telling another.

Price it so it pays

The commonest mistake is pricing a turnover like a domestic clean and forgetting laundry, travel and weekend work. Work out what a clean costs you before you quote: our guide to pricing Airbnb and short-let cleaning walks through it, and laundry and linen for holiday lets covers the part most people underprice.

Agree terms in writing

A one-page agreement with each host saves most arguments. It should say:

• What a standard clean includes, and what counts as an extra.
• Checkout and check-in times, and what happens on a same-day turnover.
• How bookings reach you, and how much notice you need.
• What you charge when a booking is cancelled at the last minute.
• How damage and missing items are reported.
• When you invoice and when you are paid.

Set up your systems before you are busy

Every cleaning company that grows hits the same wall at around ten properties: bookings in messages, a schedule in someone's head, and key codes in a chat. It is far easier to start tidy than to tidy up in August.

• A checklist for every clean. Start with our turnover cleaning checklist.
• Photos at the end of every clean, from day one. They settle complaints and damage claims.
• One schedule that takes bookings straight from the hosts' calendars.
• Notes for each property, kept in one place: access, bed sizes, what the host is particular about.
• A record of the time each clean takes, so you know which properties are worth keeping.