Inventory for renting

[Amadeaa]

I’m the landlord, renting out my property via an estate agency. The agency wants me to pay £250 for them to do an inventory at the start of the tenancy. Is this reasonable/necessary? Can I do an inventory myself or are there any other services I can use? It’s a one-bed flat and I provide (basic) furniture for my tenants, but nothing of value, in case that matters.

The inventory is just about THE most important document for rental purposes - it protects all the parties.

For example - a child scribbles all over your walls, no inventory? You can't prove it wasn't there when the tenants moved in, you can't charge them anything to put it back to how it was. Same applies to carpets etc, if you can't prove the condition of your property, you can't get any money back from th3 deposit if the place gets trashed.

£250 is a fairly standard price, you can shop around if you like - there are independent people who do it.

Equally you could do it yourself, there are templates online - just make sure the tenant has the opportunity to check and agree with it before you both sign it, date it and both take a copy of it. Always photos AND written descriptions of EVERYTHING. I do literally mean everything by the way.

Also any furniture you're supplying your tenants must meet fire safety regulations.

Feel free to ask any questions, this is the sector I work in 😊

£250 is expensive for a one bed flat. You can definitely do it yourself for free or get someone else to do it for less than that.
Whilst it's sensible to have one, they're really not of great value.
Deposit themselves are usually one month's rent and wouldn't go far if the tenants damaged or stole your property
If you can't agree on how much to keep from the deposit to rectify any damage done, you have to go through the deposit scheme and they make a decision.
They ask for so much information and proof - it's clearly designed to put landlords off putting in a claim.
They are also a law unto themselves but some are better than others.
Have a look on Trustpilot - you'll be shocked by some of the reviews.
If I were you, I'd do it myself, take photos, document everything and hope you get decent tenants.

I always have a professional inventory done (it protects you & the tenants). Any dispute at the end of the tenancy & a professional inventory is worth it’s weight in gold.

No need to pay £250 through the estate agent. Go to ‘Live Lettings’ & they Will do it for you for circa £125. This is who the agents use but they put a massive mark up on it.

I have 7 btl properties and I photograph each room from different angles, print them off, then get tenants to sign and date each photo when they sign the lease. I also list items such as washing machine, tumble dryer and any other white goods or integrated white goods and list the brand too. This is the final page of the tenancy agreement and I get them to check brands and sign. I always give the tenant a copy of the rental agreement including photos. This way you have evidence in case you need to go to the adjudicator. I've never had any disputes about bonds and I think it's because the photos speak for themselves. Also if a tenant has been there for a couple of years maybe they forget the walls were freshly painted or carpets new.

You could do it yourself but be aware inventories go into a lot of detail - of the tenancy we just left, the inventory PDF ran to over 130 pages and that was for an unfurnished house. You need to detail and photograph every mark, scratch, everything that's included, down to things like plugs on chains and what condition it's in. It took about an hour with the inventory clerk at check in and another hour at check out, plus his time to create the document.

As a tenant, they are there to protect me. Years ago, an unscrupulous LL tried to take my deposit to re-tile an entire bathroom top to bottom after I cracked one tile. The reason I cracked one tile was because the stupid bastard added a chrome fixture to an air vent pulley which was placed right above the shower, in a bathroom with no other ventilation. So of course it got slippery and pinged out of my hand. Way before the days of deposit protection schemes, a thorough inventory saved me from paying a penny.

Equally, in my last house, our cat ruined a carpet and I had that replaced without them knowing about it. If they hadn't bothered with an inventory they could have been down £440 for that, instead of me.

I would do it. They are more often than not rubbish and need going through with a fine tooth comb though.

Thank you everyone! I have an update, and would be grateful for further advice especially from those in the industry…I purchased an ‘inventory & check in’ package from the estate agent, which wasn’t cheap but I was a bit busy and wanted to make sure that everything is done correctly. The tenants move in today and I spent the bank holiday weekend with doing cleaning, removing rubbish and chunk from the flat, removing some old furniture and replacing it with new furniture etc. In short, it was in a bad state on Friday 5th in the morning and in top condition by yesterday evening for the tenancy to start today.

I just found out that the estate agent arranged the inventory for Friday 5th morning WITHOUT telling me that anyone would enter the property at this date or carry out an inventory (the agents confirmed last week that the inventory & check in is booked, and I assumed that this would happen today at start of tenancy.
As a result, the inventory mentions several items in bad condition, dirt etc which wasn’t at all how the tenants found the flat today.
I mentioned this problem to the estate agent but all I got was ‘sorry for the misunderstanding, yes you’re right, the inventory was carried out last Friday already’.

What shall I do now? I think neither myself nor the tenant are protected by this inventory because it’s highly inaccurate. My problem is that there were furniture items listed as being in very bad condition which I’ve replaced with new items over the weekend, and the tenants problem is that there are items listed as being in the flat which I have removed since.

Do I need to escalate this situation with the estate agents and raise a formal complaint?

It’s mad people pay so much money for inventories when you can literally do it yourself. Take a picture of every single thing in the house, every wall, carpet, ceiling, meters etc…

Put all the photos into a folder, use PowerPoint and find the ‘Photo Album’ feature. It will auto upload all of the pictures with a text box below. Write any notes in the text box. Done. Takes about an hour and you save £250.

Surely if you break one tile, unless there is a spare tile, all the tiles would have to be changed?

@caringcarer that's not how it works - a landlord cannot claim "betterment" whereby something gets replaced to a better standard than what was already there. So for example if a tile gets cracked, the landlord can claim for that tile to be replaced and no more.

I've been in my current rental for over 5 years, the carpets were probably 3 years old when I moved in. Given the average life expectancy of a carpet is anything between 5-15 years, my landlord wouldn't be able to claim on my deposit for a new carpet. If the carpet cost for example £2000 and was expected to last 10 years, he could only claim £600 for the 3 years left of the carpets "shelf life"

Yes I understand betterment and carpets I believe are generally given an 8 year life by ARLA, so agreed could only claim for the rest of life of carpet up to the 8 years. It may just be accepted as wear and tear. But how can you replace one tile? You'd be lucky to get another tile the same and even if you had a spare it would look a different shade as not been used before. How is it betterment to want the tiles in the bathroom to match if they matched before? For example if the bathroom was tiled in Metro tiles then wanting matching Metro tiles would not be betterment surely?

For one broken tile, it’s unreasonable to retile a whole bathroom.
The same as one mark on one wall doesn’t trigger the whole room being redecorated.

@carcaringcarer unfortunately it's just tough, it would be seen that any reasonably well matched tile of a similar value would 'do' as a replacement.

I mean if you accidentally cracked a tile in your bathroom, you'd be unlikely to retile your entire bathroom right? So why should the tenant?

I'm not saying it doesn't suck, just saying it's unrealistic to expect a tenant to pay to fix something that an owner themselves would be unlikely to do

Definitely get the inventory re-done. It’s worthless as it stands now. If the agent did it without telling you, they should really have done it again.

check your agent is a member of the property ombudsman and if they are, read this as it’s good to know what services your agent is obliged to provide.

TPOS code of practice for agents

You simply need to ask for the inventory to be updated. The tenant will be adding their own comments to it. They usually have the first week to ten days of the tenancy to do this. Two weeks into the tenancy the check in inventory is finalised. So simply go through the items and put in updates.

In future, you and the estate agent need to communicate better. Inventories are not done on weekends or move in day. So, the Friday before is when I would have expected the inventory to have happened. You should have expected it too, but being a first time landlord didn’t think to ask. So this is a learning curve for you.

In addition £250 to do inventory is about right for a one bedroom, furnished flat.