Everything You Need To Know About Property Inventory Reports

The term "inventory" is defined as the stock that a company holds which may include raw materials, work in progress, or finished goods ready for sale.

However, in the world of landlords and estate agents it is taken to mean the inspection and reporting of the condition of a property for rent, or being rented, including all the contents, if any. This could relate to an empty flat, or it could cover a furnished house with a full set of furniture, lighting, curtains, heating, and so on.

Quite obviously, an empty one-bedroom flat will only have the bare essentials such as lighting, a bath or shower, hand basin, toilet, kitchen sink and some cupboards underneath, and that’s about it. A fully furnished three-bedroom detached house could have a huge amount of items that need to be inspected, including a garage, front and rear garden, and more, and their condition reported and recorded.

Why?

Because from the landlord’s point of view, as the owner of all this, he or she wants to make certain that when the tenant leaves the property – which could be in a matter of months or many years – everything is in the same condition as it was when the tenant first moved in – allowing for normal wear and tear of course.

An inventory report is also extremely important from the tenant’s point of view as well. When he moves in – or just before – he has to provide a deposit to the landlord or his agents and this remains his money until he moves out again. The landlord or agent must keep it secure in the meantime. This comes under a law known as the Tenant Deposit Scheme.

The inventory report is very important for the tenant because when he moves out, the landlord can apply for compensation to carry out repairs if the tenant has caused any sort of damage to the property. That compensation would be allocated out of the tenant’s original deposit.

Note that the deposit is the property of the tenant, and the landlord has to provide evidence that any damage was caused by the tenant before he can claim compensation from the deposit. The only way that he can do that is by undertaking what is called a check-in inventory before the tenant moves in and a check-out inventory after he has just moved out.

That is all very well, but if the check-in inventory carried out by the landlord or his agents missed certain things, then the tenant could be blamed for damages which he has not caused but which already existed when he moved in.

This is why it is critical that all tenants should be provided with an inventory report when they move in, and even more critical that they take the time to check that it is correct. The landlord or his agents should allow the tenant a week or so to check out the inventory and point out any errors. As you can see, if the tenant fails to do this then he may be found liable for damage that he didn’t cause.

Note that it is not a legal requirement that an inventory be carried out, but that it is in the interests of both the landlord and tenant that is.

From the landlord or his agents’ point of view, carrying out an inventory can be very time-consuming indeed. The tenant doesn’t have to produce it – only check it on moving in.

Working your way through a property as a landlord or letting agent can be a very tedious business, which is why you can now obtain a property inventory app which helps to cut down the time considerably. There are several of these types of app available and what they do is enable an inspector to move through the property room by room and either type a description on to a tablet or mobile, or alternatively dictate it. This is far faster than writing notes in a notebook, and far more accurate, as the apps often contain prompts in order to make certain nothing is missed.

Depending on the property inventory app, the notes can then either be typed up or transcribed by the person doing the inspection, or in some instances can be provided by the app providers themselves.

Reports2Go has produced a property inventory app for use by landlords, estate agents, and inventory clerks, which covers every aspect of an inventory and provides automatic prompts to the inspector. The app can be used in audio or text mode, and the report produced either by Reports2Go staff or typed up by the inspector.

Reports2Go has created the Reports2Go app which is free to download on to a mobile or tablet and makes the whole process of taking inventory much quicker and simpler, at the same time providing concrete evidence of dilapidations or wear and tear with