Landlord pledge – calling all landlords and estate agents

Samuel Estates is the first estate agents to sign up for the pledge. Visit the Samuel Estates website to find out more about their work. 

As an estate agent or landlord, you are the first ‘port of call’ for residents moving into the borough and we ask you to help make sure that new tenants know how to dispose of their household waste and recycling responsibly.

It’s also important that residents do the right thing with their waste during their tenancy, as well as importantly when they move out.

All the work you already do to help to make this happen is so, so vital which is why we rely on your continued support for this initiative.  

And as a council, we work tirelessly to clean and clear waste and recycling from our roads and pavements, but we can’t do it alone – we also need residents and businesses to do their bit for Wandsworth and help champion a clean borough.

For example, our busy town centres are cleaned up to five times a day. We clean more than 400km of streets every week. And between 2020 to 2021 we issued more than 5,150 fines for littering and fly-tipping offences across the whole borough.

And we will also be working with estate agents and landlords to set up best practice guides to make the borough evener cleaner.    

Help us today by signing up for our new pledge.

Councillor Steffi Sutters,
Cabinet member for Community Services & Open Spaces


Sign the pledge
All landlords and estate agents are invited to sign the pledge. By signing, landlords agree to ensure that tenants are aware of their responsibilities to dispose of their waste and recycling correctly.

And any estate agents that signs up, agree to ensure that landlords they work with are aware of their responsibilities. And in return, we’ll publicise those who sign up by adding you to our website as a supporter.

To sign the pledge, email mywandsworth@wandsworth.co.uk adding “Landlord Pledge” in the heading and with the following wording in your email, Yes, I’m signing up to the Landlord Pledge. Please add me to your website as YOUR BUSINESS NAME.

What you pledge to do
The pledge is simple and means that by all working together we can help keep the borough looking at its best.

• Estate agents are invited to ensure that landlords are aware of their responsibilities.
  
  
• Landlords are invited to ensure that their tenants do the right thing when they move in, during their rental period, and importantly when they move out.

Your responsibility as a landlord

As a landlord, please help everyone locally, by making sure your tenants know what to do with their waste.

Please ensure,

• your tenants are disposing of their waste correctly. There is lots of information to help you do that on our website. See section below – rubbish, recycling and bulky waste collections.
  
  
• where applicable ensure that tenants have appropriate bins to dispose of their rubbish and can access any communal recycling and waste collection areas (bin stores). This includes taking all reasonable steps to make sure areas are kept clear to enable access to and collection from containers and providing any necessary key or access code to the tenant and council collection crews.
  
  
• that you use a licenced waste carrier to dispose of any business waste. Ensure the contractor has a Waste Carriers Licence and that a Duty of Care waste transfer note is provided showing the description and disposal route of the waste.
  
  
• any waste or unwanted bulky items (i.e. mattresses, furniture etc.) left at the property are removed appropriately from the premises.  

Rubbish, recycling and bulky waste collections
Below is all the information residents need to dispose of their waste correctly,  

• Put your rubbish out correctly to reduce the risk of missed bin collections.
• Find out what you can and can't recycle. To check specific items, use the A-Z recycling tool
• Make sure you know your rubbish collection day.
• If you have any large items, book a bulky waste collectionor visit the household waste recycling centre. And don’t pay cowboys to take away your rubbish
• ReWork: repair, sell or fix itemsreuse workshop
• Donate unwanted itemsvia charity shops
• Donate, sell, giveaway, plus find and buy items online. Wandsworth Freegle: giveaway or find items for free, Gumtreesell or buy items, Facebook marketplace sell or buy items 

Remind residents of their responsibilities

As a landlord, you can help do your bit by reminding residents of their waste responsibilities,

Pre-tenancy: please provide tenants with information on recycling and waste services.

• Give residents information on our recycling and waste service, ensuring they have the opportunity to separate and dispose of their recycling and waste responsibly from the start of their tenancy (see section above). Everything that residents need to know can be found on our website.
• Written information can be provided as part of a ‘welcome pack’ or via a notice board, or be included within the inventory or appended to the tenancy agreement.
• For example, you could include a clause requiring the tenant to ‘store, separate and place for collection all recycling and residual waste (including bulky waste) in accordance with the written information provided at the start of the tenancy and in accordance with the policies set out by Wandsworth council.’
• Please sure that the correct communal bins are in place, where applicable, to enable tenants to responsibly separate and dispose of their recycling and waste.

During their tenancy: during a tenancy, check with residents that they are disposing of their waste and recycling correctly.

• When visiting the property (for example to carry out an inspection) you may want to check that tenants are storing and separating their recycling and waste and placing it for collection correctly.
• If you identify issues, remind the tenant of their responsibilities and encourage them to contact us if they have issues preventing them from managing their waste properly.
  
  

End of tenancy: once you know a tenancy is ending, please remind the tenant of their responsibilities for leaving recycling and waste out for final collection by the council and removing any extra or bulky waste that won’t fit in the bins responsibly or by using our bulky waste collection service or a registered waste collection business.

Landlords should note that once a property becomes vacant, any waste or unwanted items left from the previous occupancy is no longer considered as household waste and becomes commercial waste, so you will need to arrange for disposal of any waste left behind.

Sign the pledge
All landlords and estate agents are invited to sign the pledge. By signing, landlords agree to ensure that tenants are aware of their responsibilities to dispose of their waste and recycling correctly. And any estate agents that sign agree to ensure that landlords they work with are aware of their responsibilities. And in return, we’ll publicise those who sign up by adding you to our website as a supporter.

To sign the pledge, email mywandsworth@wandsworth.co.uk adding “Landlord Pledge” and with the following wording in your email,

Yes, I’m signing up to the Landlord Pledge. Please add me to your website as INSERT LANDLORD OR ESTATE AGENT NAME.

Thank you for your support.