Landlord's guide to garden clearance between tenants

In most assured shorthold tenancies of a house with its own garden, day-to-day garden maintenance sits with the tenant and structural work, trees, boundaries and hedges sit with the landlord, but it depends entirely on what the agreement says. If you want to recover the cost of clearing a garden from a deposit, the agreement is only half of it. What decides an adjudication is evidence: a check-in inventory that describes the garden, dated photographs at check-in and check-out, and an invoice for work that restores the garden to its original condition rather than improving it. Without that, deductions for gardens are among the easier claims for a tenant to defeat.

This guide is general information, not legal advice. Every tenancy is different, so check your own agreement, and take advice from a solicitor or a landlord association on anything contested.

Who is responsible for the garden

There is no statutory rule that assigns garden upkeep. The Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 puts the structure and exterior of the dwelling on the landlord for most shorter tenancies, which is generally read as covering things like retaining walls, boundary fences in poor repair and dangerous trees, rather than mowing and weeding. Beyond that it is a matter of contract.

In practice, a typical agreement for a house says something like:

• the tenant keeps the garden reasonably tidy and cultivated, mows the grass, controls weeds and does not allow it to deteriorate
• the landlord deals with trees, large hedges, structural items and anything needing equipment or qualifications
• neither party removes trees, hedges or structures without the other's written consent

Flats and HMOs are different. Where a garden is shared, or the tenant only has access to part of it, responsibility usually stays with the landlord or the managing agent, and a clause requiring an individual tenant to maintain a communal garden is difficult to enforce.

What a tenancy agreement can and cannot require

You can require a tenant to keep the garden in the condition it was in at check-in, allowing for fair wear and tear. You can require them not to remove planting or structures. You can require them to keep paths clear and not to allow the garden to become a hazard or a nuisance.

What is harder to enforce:

• a clause requiring the garden to be returned in better condition than at check-in
• a blanket requirement to pay for professional gardening at the end of the tenancy regardless of condition
• maintenance of a communal garden by one tenant
• work requiring equipment or qualifications a tenant cannot reasonably be expected to have, such as tree work or hedge reduction at height
• any clause imposing a fixed sum for garden clearance on check-out

Terms in a consumer contract that create a significant imbalance to the tenant's detriment can be challenged as unfair under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, and adjudicators take that into account. A clause that simply asks for the garden to be kept as found is far more useful to you than an aggressive one that gets struck out.

Deposit deductions for garden condition

Deposits in England must be protected in an authorised scheme, and disputes are decided by that scheme's adjudicator on the documents alone. Nobody visits. So the question is not what the garden was like, it is what you can show.

What adjudicators expect to see:

• a check-in inventory that actually describes the garden: lawn, beds, hedges, boundaries, shed and its contents, with the state each was in
• dated photographs or video at check-in and again at check-out, taken from the same positions
• a check-out report identifying what has changed
• an invoice or written quotation for the remedial work, proportionate to the damage
• any correspondence where you raised the garden during the tenancy

What they discount:

• general statements that the garden was "in good order", with no detail
• photographs with no date, or only end-of-tenancy photographs
• the cost of a full clearance where the garden was already overgrown at check-in
• the cost of improvement, such as returfing a lawn that was tired at the start
• seasonal change and normal growth over a long tenancy, which is fair wear and tear

The two practical lessons: describe the garden properly in the inventory, and photograph it on the day the tenant moves in even if the tenancy is being set up in a rush. A dated set of check-in photographs costs you ten minutes and is the single thing most often missing when a garden claim fails.

Where a garden has genuinely been neglected, rather than simply grown, a claim can succeed. Raise it in writing during the tenancy, give the tenant a reasonable opportunity to put it right, and keep the correspondence.

Rubbish and fly-tipped waste left behind

This is the point landlords are most often caught out on. Once a tenant leaves and the property is vacant, rubbish left behind is generally treated by councils as the landlord's waste, and as commercial waste rather than household waste, because it arises from a business. That has consequences:

• it should not go in the household bins or be taken to a household recycling centre as domestic waste
• it must be given to a registered waste carrier
• you should receive and keep a waste transfer note for each load. Businesses must keep transfer notes for two years
• failures under the duty of care in section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 can be enforced by fixed penalty notice or prosecution

If someone has fly-tipped in the garden or the alleyway behind it, the waste on your land becomes your problem to remove, even though you did not put it there. Report it to the council first, photograph it, and get it removed by a registered carrier rather than by whoever answers a social media advert. Our fly-tipping guide shows how to check a carrier on the Environment Agency register.

HMOs and licensing in Birmingham

If the property is a house in multiple occupation, licensing adds another layer. Birmingham City Council operates mandatory HMO licensing and has run additional licensing for smaller HMOs, alongside selective licensing in defined areas, and the schemes change, so check the council's current position for the specific address before you let. Licence conditions commonly include requirements around waste storage and management and around the condition of the property, including outside areas, and an overgrown rear yard full of bins and abandoned furniture is a routine finding at an HMO inspection.

Operating a licensable HMO without a licence carries serious consequences, including civil penalties and rent repayment orders. Do not take a view on whether a property is licensable from a website, including this one: check with the council.

Recurring maintenance or one-off clearance

For most single-let houses, the cheapest arrangement is a one-off clearance between tenancies and a tenant obligation to keep it that way. For flats, HMOs, corner plots with long boundaries, or properties with a history of neglect, a scheduled visit is usually cheaper over a year than one heavy clearance.

A rough way to decide: if the garden has hedges over about a metre and a half, mature trees, or more than one boundary onto a public path, budget for scheduled maintenance. If it is a lawn and a couple of beds, a one-off reset plus a tenant clause is enough.

Where you do pay for maintenance, say so in the tenancy and in the rent. A tenant who believes the landlord is handling the garden, and a landlord who believes the tenant is, produces the gardens we get called to.

Turnaround between tenancies

Void periods cost more than clearance does, so speed matters. What usually holds a job up is not the crew, it is access and decisions.

To turn a garden round in a week:

1. Book the check-out and the clearance for the same week, and give the crew the check-out photographs.
2. Confirm access: keys, a key safe code, whether there is side access or whether the route is through the house, and where the van can park.
3. Say up front what is going: shed, greenhouse, furniture, mattresses, fence panels, rubble. Mixed waste changes the price and the vehicle.
4. Decide on hedges and trees before the visit, not on the day.
5. Ask for the invoice and waste transfer note straight away, so it is ready for the deposit claim if you need it.

A typical between-tenancies garden reset is a one-day job for a two- or three-person crew. Our guide on how long garden clearance takes breaks this down by job size.

What it costs

From our price card, with waste removal included:

Mixed waste, which is what most void properties produce, adds about 20 per cent. Access through the house, or a carry over 20 metres, adds about 15 per cent. There is a £150 job minimum, though green waste collections are exempt from it, and anything over £1,200 goes to a free survey. The garden clearance cost guide and the hedge removal cost guide have the detail.

Quote for the full cost including waste when you put a figure to a tenant. An invoice showing a single inclusive price is easier to defend in an adjudication than a day rate plus tip charges.

Getting it booked

We are an introducer. We pass your enquiry to one local clearance specialist for the area, who confirms a fixed price from your photographs. Tell us it is a void property and when the new tenancy starts.

• Garden clearance and overgrown garden clearance
• Green waste removal where a tenant has cut but not cleared
• Hedge trimming and hedge removal
• Shed removal
• Landlords across north Birmingham, south Birmingham and Edgbaston and Harborne are among our most frequent enquiries