Do Landlords Need a Property Inventory?

Is a property inventory a legal requirement?

No. Nothing in housing law obliges you to produce one, and no council can fine you for letting a property without it.

What the law does require instead

You must protect the deposit in one of the three approved schemes within 30 days of taking it, and the government’s deposit protection rules set the same 30 day deadline for giving the tenant the prescribed information. You then have to return the deposit within 10 days of both sides agreeing how much comes back.

Schedule 1 of the Tenant Fees Act 2019 lists every payment you may require from a tenant, and an inventory or check-in fee is not on it. The deposit itself is capped at five weeks’ rent where the annual rent is under £50,000, and six weeks at or above it.

So the inventory is unpaid work you do for your own protection. That is exactly why so many landlords skip it and then regret it.

Why adjudicators treat it as compulsory

The Deposit Protection Service puts it plainly: the deposit belongs to the tenant until you provide enough evidence to justify a claim. Its minimum evidence for a condition claim is a signed tenancy agreement plus signed check-in and check-out inventory reports.

That single line is the whole argument for keeping one. Without it you are asking an adjudicator to prefer your recollection to a document that does not exist.

What does a defensible inventory contain?

Every room, every surface and every item you provide, described precisely enough that a stranger could match your words to the object twelve months later.

The room by room content list

Work in the same order every time so nothing gets missed. The table below is the structure a clerk uses, and it is the one worth copying.

How specific your wording needs to be

“Wall scuffed” is worth nothing at adjudication. “Brown scuff mark, 3cm, living room south wall, 1.2m above skirting, white emulsion” is worth the deduction.

For furnished lets, record the make, model and serial number of anything you would replace on a landlord contents claim. A line reading “sofa, good condition” tells an adjudicator nothing about what good meant in March.

How it should be signed and dated

Hand the report over at check-in, give the tenant seven days to comment in writing, then have both parties sign and date every page or a signature block that refers to the page count.

If the tenant will not sign, email the report with a dated covering note and keep the delivery record. The Tenancy Deposit Scheme and the other approved schemes take evidence from both sides, so an unsigned report backed by dated photographs and proof of delivery still carries real weight.

What photograph standards do adjudicators accept?

Wide shots that place the damage in the room, close-ups that show it, and image files whose original date stamps are still intact.

What makes a photograph usable evidence

• Shoot the whole room first, then the detail, so the close-up can be located.
• Put something of known size in the frame for anything you are measuring.
• Use daylight where you can, because flash flattens the marks you are recording.
• Name files by room and item rather than leaving them as IMG_4471.

Around 100 to 150 photographs is normal for a two bedroom flat. Fewer than 40 and you have a slideshow rather than a record.

Keep the metadata intact

Every phone photo carries an embedded capture date, and that hidden timestamp is far stronger than a date typed into the report. Check your phone clock is set correctly before you start.

Sending images through messaging apps compresses them and strips that data out. Keep the original files, and treat the exported PDF as the copy rather than the master.

Where video helps and where it does not

A walkthrough video is good context and poor evidence on its own, because nobody can search it for the mark on the landing wall. Adjudicators read the written schedule and use the images to check it.

How do check-in, mid-tenancy and check-out records fit together?

Check-in sets the baseline, the mid-tenancy record shows when a problem started, and check-out measures the difference. All three should use the same template.

The mid-tenancy record most landlords skip

Inspect roughly every six months, with at least 24 hours’ written notice and at a reasonable time of day. Photograph what you find and date the note, even when nothing has changed.

This is the record that proves a leak started in month four rather than month twenty-two. It also gives your insurer a date of loss if you later claim for malicious damage by a tenant.

Timing the check-out

Do the check-out within 24 to 72 hours of the keys coming back, and before any cleaner, decorator or contractor sets foot inside. Once a trade has been in, the evidence is gone.

Compare the two reports line by line rather than from memory, and price each item separately. If the property then stands empty while the work runs, tell your insurer, because most policies restrict cover once a property is unoccupied for 30 to 45 days.

Should you pay a professional clerk or do it yourself?

Pay a clerk for furnished lets, shared houses and any property where you expect an argument. A careful DIY report is enough for a simple unfurnished flat.

What each option costs in 2026

Budget for two clerk visits rather than one, because a check-in report without a matching check-out proves very little. On a £1,200 a month tenancy the pair costs less than a fortnight’s rent.

Why independence carries weight

The NRLA treats inventories as best practice and notes that independent reports are preferred by the adjudication schemes. A clerk has no stake in the outcome, which is precisely what makes the report hard to attack.

If you run four or more properties, one lost dispute a year costs more than the clerk fees, which is why most portfolio landlords build them into the letting budget. The same holds for shared houses, where HMO cover and room by room letting multiply the number of items in dispute.

When diy is enough

A single unfurnished flat bought on a buy-to-let mortgage does not need a paid clerk. It needs three uninterrupted hours, a consistent template and a phone with space on it.

How long should you keep an inventory?

Six years after the tenancy ends, with the photographs kept as original files rather than only as a flattened PDF.

Why six years and not twelve months

A tenancy agreement is a contract, and the Limitation Act 1980 gives six years from the date a contract claim arises. A deposit argument can therefore surface long after you have relet the property.

All three approved schemes, mydeposits included, decide only on the evidence each side actually files. A report you cannot find is a report you do not have.

Storing it so it still works as evidence

• Keep the original image files, not just the report they were pasted into.
• Keep the signed copy together with the covering email that delivered it.
• Back up off the phone, because handsets get replaced every three years.
• File the tenancy agreement and deposit certificate in the same folder.

Delete the lot once the six years are up. Holding tenant records indefinitely is a data protection problem of its own making.

How does an inventory support an insurance claim?

It gives the insurer a dated before picture. Without one, a tenant damage claim turns into an argument about whether the damage was already there when you bought the place.

Malicious and accidental damage

Malicious damage by tenants is included on many landlord policies, and accidental damage cover is usually an optional extra. Both are paid on proof that the damage is new, which is the one thing a check-in report is designed to show.

Small damage is rarely worth claiming, because a £350 policy excess swallows most of it. Deduct from the deposit instead and keep landlord insurance for the losses that would hurt.

Arrears, legal costs and lost rent

Arrears are proved by a rent statement rather than a condition report, which is why rent guarantee cover sits alongside the deposit rather than inside it. Legal expenses cover funds the costs if a deposit or possession dispute goes past adjudication.

If the damage makes the property unlettable, loss of rent under a let property policy covers the income while the repairs run. Your check-out report is what fixes the date the rent stopped being earnable.

What happens at adjudication if there is no inventory?

You lose the condition part of the claim in almost every case. The adjudicator is not deciding who sounds more honest, only whether you have proved your case.

How the decision gets made

Adjudication is paper based and there is no hearing. The Deposit Protection Service gives landlords 14 calendar days to upload evidence once a dispute opens, and the decision that follows is binding.

Awards are then reduced for betterment and fair wear and tear. Adjudicators weigh the length of the tenancy, the number and age of the occupants and the expected lifespan of the item before they allow a penny.

What you can still salvage without one

• Dated photographs taken at viewings or at the previous tenant’s check-out.
• Contractor invoices showing work done shortly before the tenancy started.
• The cleaning and condition clauses in the signed tenancy agreement.
• Written exchanges where the tenant acknowledged causing the damage.

None of that replaces a check-in report, and partial evidence usually produces a partial award. Hosts letting short stays under Airbnb cover face the same problem in miniature and need a dated condition record before every booking.