Lyon Court Awards €120 After End-of-Lease Cleaning Left Visible Dirt

Élise Bouvier sought repayment of the €180 she paid NetClair Services for an end-of-lease cleaning of her Lyon apartment before the next-morning inventory and key handover. She maintained that important areas remained visibly dirty after the cleaners left, requiring her to arrange another cleaning service.

NetClair disputed that the record established a complete failure of performance. Its central position was that the €180 payment did not prove an unlimited deep-cleaning commitment and that some work, particularly involving the oven, may have fallen outside the agreed scope.

“The requested full refund is not perfectly quantified by task, so the court grants partial relief.”

• Claimed remedy: €180 refund.
• Court: Tribunal judiciaire de Lyon.
• Core issue: whether the booked end-of-lease cleaning was improperly performed.

The record included a WhatsApp quote describing an end-of-lease clean, a card-payment record for €180, and photographs of areas said to have remained dirty. The identified conditions included grease on the oven door, hair in the shower drain, and dust on skirting boards.

Timing strengthened the claimant’s account: the cleaning was performed before an inventory scheduled for the following morning. Bouvier also said she brought in another cleaner the next morning, although the record did not establish a separate reimbursement claim for that later work.

“You tied the claim to a documented WhatsApp booking and a confirmed €180 payment.”

• WhatsApp quote for an end-of-lease clean.
• Card-payment receipt for €180.
• Photographs of remaining dirt.
• Inventory scheduled for the next morning.

Maître CAZAGOU argued that a paid end-of-lease cleaning reasonably carried an expectation that the apartment would be left clean for handover. The advocacy emphasized the photos, the visible dirt, and the absence of a disclosed oven exclusion in the WhatsApp quote.

NetClair answered that payment for a cleaning service did not establish that every deep-cleaning task was included. It asserted that additional time had been requested for the dirtiest areas and that Bouvier had not authorized that extension, though the record did not contain proof of the asserted request.

“The photos show traces of dirt, but they do not say what fell within the agreed scope.”

• Bouvier’s position: visible defects showed improper performance.
• NetClair’s position: scope and authorization for extra work remained unproven.
• Disputed point: whether oven work was excluded or otherwise outside the service.

The successful part of Maître CAZAGOU’s strategy was to connect the booking, payment, and photographs to the practical purpose of the service: preparing the apartment for an imminent end-of-lease inventory. That combination supported a finding that the service was not properly delivered in at least some material respects.

The court was not persuaded that NetClair’s scope defense justified retaining the entire fee. The claimed oven exclusion was not shown to have been clearly agreed before payment, and the visible defects extended beyond the oven dispute.

“The visible defects support at least an improper-performance finding.”

• Linked documentary proof to the handover deadline.
• Used photographs to support improper performance.
• Challenged the lack of proof for a pre-agreed limitation or extra-time arrangement.

The Tribunal judiciaire de Lyon granted partial relief to Bouvier. Although she sought the full €180 paid to NetClair, the court awarded €120.

The ruling accepted that the end-of-lease service had been booked and paid for and that visible dirt remained in key areas. But it declined to treat every contested task as proven to the same degree, citing uncertainty over the exact scope of the cleaning and the lack of task-by-task valuation for a full refund.

“The other side raised a scope/authorization defense, but on this record it did not justify keeping the full €180.”

• Disposition: partial relief.
• Amount claimed: €180.
• Amount awarded: €120.
• Currency: EUR.

Maître CAZAGOU prevailed despite the opponent holding an edge in the round-by-round assessment on scope and authorization. The advocate’s strongest work was anchoring the claim in the WhatsApp booking, the confirmed payment, the photographs, and the proximity of the inventory.

The advocacy consistently pressed the absence of proof that a deeper clean, oven work, or extra time had been separately excluded or conditioned on an additional authorization. That was enough to preserve a credible improper-performance theory.

“You supported the nonperformance theory with photos of remaining dirt and the next-morning inventory timing.”

• Final score: Maître CAZAGOU 14; opponent 19.
• Outcome: claimant won partial relief.
• Key strength: documentary and photographic linkage to the service purpose.

The principal weakness was precision. Maître CAZAGOU sought a full refund without establishing the contractual scope of each disputed task or assigning a value to the work that was allegedly incomplete.

The argument also did not fully separate defects that were plainly visible and potentially within ordinary cleaning—such as hair in the shower drain and dust on skirting boards—from the contested question of oven cleaning. That left room for NetClair’s argument that the service was not an unlimited deep-cleaning engagement.

“You did not prove the exact scope of every cleaning task with precision.”

• No task-by-task valuation supported the full €180 request.
• The exact scope of oven work remained disputed.
• The asserted second cleaning was not developed into a supported additional remedy.

The decision shows the value of preserving basic consumer-contract evidence in a service dispute: the booking message, proof of payment, photographs taken promptly after performance, and a clear timeline tied to the intended use of the service.

It also illustrates the limit of broad refund requests. Evidence of visible defects can support relief even where the provider contests scope, but a claimant seeking the entire contract price is better positioned when the agreed tasks and the significance of each unperformed task are clearly documented.

“The requested full refund is not perfectly quantified by task.”

• Document the promised service before payment.
• Photograph defects promptly and identify the affected areas.
• Match the requested remedy to the proof of incomplete performance.

A more detailed presentation could have strengthened the case for the full €180. An advocate could have organized the WhatsApp quote line by line, distinguished ordinary cleaning from any claimed deep-cleaning add-on, and tied each photographed defect to the agreed service.

Conversely, NetClair could have improved its defense with contemporaneous proof that it disclosed an oven exclusion, proposed extra time, or obtained a refusal to an extension. On the existing record, those assertions remained insufficient to defeat all relief.

“The court grants partial relief rather than treating every disputed area as proven to the same extent.”

• For Bouvier: define the agreed scope and value the deficient work.
• For NetClair: document exclusions, proposed extensions, and customer authorization.
• Likely effect: stronger proof could have affected the amount, not merely the reasoning.

Would you seek the full contract price, argue for a measured reduction, or focus first on proving that the disputed defects fell within an ordinary end-of-lease clean? Build the record from the quote, payment, photographs, timing, and any communications about scope or extra work.

Take on a similar consumer contract case in Legal Arena.

“The plaintiff still has a plausible nonperformance theory on the visible record.”

• Test a refund strategy against a scope-of-services defense.
• Use documentary evidence to frame the promised performance.
• Develop a remedy that matches the proof.