A guide to avoiding tenant disputes by using inventories

Research by Statista, a statistics portal for market data, found more than half of landlords who responded were in disputes with their tenants, the main reasons being arrears, cleanliness, pets, subletting and breakages. Using regular property inventories letting agents can help their landlord clients to avoid such problems.

When should you use a property inventory?

A property inventory provides a detailed report on the contents and condition of a property, listing furniture, fixtures and fittings and alongside the condition and cleanliness.

A property inspection must take place for each new tenancy to detail the condition of the property at the start; at regular intervals throughout the tenancy to record any changes and damages from the check-in inventory; and finally, at the end of the tenancy to assess the property as the tenant departs.

These regular inspections provide a full report of the property’s condition for the complete duration of the tenancy.

Why are property inspections of benefit?

Completing a property inventory might seem like a time-consuming task for a busy letting agent looking after a number of properties. However, a comprehensive inventory process can stop a landlord-tenant dispute from escalating into a legal dispute, which would be far more costly in time and money. A proper inventory system offers other benefits:

• Essential evidence about the state of the property
• Crucial evidence if you need to take the cost of a repair or replacement from a tenant’s deposit
• Claiming on insurance is much easier with inventory evidence
• A speedy inspection process to reduce the period between tenancies and maximising a property’s income potential
• Using a standard inventory process ensures that nothing is missed during a property inspection

What does an adequate property inventory look like?

To ensure that a property’s inventory and schedule of condition will be useful to avoid a dispute, it must include:

• Full contents of the property, fixtures, fittings and state of decoration
• Details of the condition for each item
• Photographic, date-stamped evidence
• A declaration page for relevant parties to indicate their agreement to the contents of the report

It must also be completed in an objective and unbiased way and enable easy comparison between reports to identify any changes in contents or condition. Ideally, a property visit should be completed every three to six months

Disputes between landlords and tenants are time-consuming, potentially costly and can affect the reputation of a landlord and their letting agent. Using an independent inventory service can help boost the credibility of an inventory for tenants because they will see it as being independent.

Discussing the tried and tested landlord inventory service we use at No Letting Go can help letting agents understand how our inventories are structured to facilitate comprehensive property inspections and designed to capture the right information to prevent disputes.

No Letting Go

If you would like to discuss how our local support or national network at No Letting Go could become your property management partner, streamline your cost, reduce workload and keep accurate property inventories the please contact us today.