What a check-in inventory must include, and why most fall short

A check-in inventory has one job: to prove, months or years later, what the property was like on the day the tenant took the keys. Everything else in a tenancy dispute is measured against it. If it is thin, vague or unsigned, the check-out has nothing to compare to and the deposit claim usually fails on that alone.

What the document is actually for

Deposit schemes in England (the Deposit Protection Service, mydeposits and the Tenancy Deposit Scheme) resolve disputes on paper. An adjudicator reads what both sides send and decides. They were not in the property, they cannot visit it, and they start from the position that the deposit is the tenant's money. The landlord has to prove a claim; the tenant does not have to disprove it.

That means the check-in inventory is not a formality. It is the only evidence of the starting point. A photograph taken after the tenant has left shows the end. It says nothing about the start.

The seven things it must contain

1. Every room, including hallway, landing, cupboards, meter cupboard, garden, bins and any garage or outbuilding. A room that is not listed is a room with no starting condition.
2. Every item in each room, working top to bottom: ceiling, walls, woodwork, floor, windows, doors, fixtures, then contents if furnished. Furnished lets need every piece of furniture listed individually.
3. A condition grade per item. Good, Fair, Poor or New is enough, as long as the same scale is used at check-out.
4. A plain description alongside the grade. 'Fair' on its own is an opinion. 'Fair: light scratching in the traffic line, no lifting' is a record.
5. A dated, numbered photograph for each line, referenced from the row. Loose photographs in a folder are hard to tie to an item and easy to argue about.
6. Keys, meter readings and smoke and carbon monoxide alarm tests on the front page, each photographed. These are the three things most disputes begin with.
7. The tenant's signature, ideally on the day, after a walk-through. An unsigned inventory is still evidence, but a signed one is far harder to dispute.

Where home-made inventories usually fail

Written by the landlord

A landlord's own inventory is admissible, but an adjudicator will weigh it as a document written by an interested party. An independent record carries more weight, and a record the tenant signed carries more still. The value is not in the clipboard; it is in the independence and the signature.

No photographs, or photographs without references

Twenty phone photographs of a room prove that a room existed. They do not prove which item is which, or what its condition was. Each photograph needs a number, and each row needs to cite the numbers that back it.

Cleanliness not recorded

Cleaning is the most common deposit deduction and the most commonly refused. If the inventory does not say the property was professionally cleaned at check-in, with photographs of the oven, the bathroom and the carpets, a cleaning claim at check-out has no baseline.

The rules around it

• Since the Tenant Fees Act 2019, the cost of an inventory, check-in or check-out cannot be charged to the tenant or taken from the deposit. The landlord or agent pays.
• A deposit must be protected in a government-approved scheme within 30 days of receipt, and the prescribed information served. An inventory does not replace either.
• The tenant is entitled to a copy of the inventory. Give it to them at check-in and keep proof that you did.
• Landlords cannot claim for fair wear and tear, and cannot claim new-for-old on items that were already used. The inventory's grades are what make that distinction possible later. See fair wear and tear vs damage.

What we do with all of this

Our check-in inventory is written to the list above, every time, for a self-managing landlord or a letting agent alike. The same clerk walks the check-out against it, and the changes are appended, never rewritten. You can see the format on the sample report.