The twenty minutes at a tenant change that save the whole year
Meter readings, photos, keys. What you do not record at handover cannot be established afterwards.
Tenant changes are always rushed. The new tenant is already on the stairs, the old one is still bringing the keys, and photographing skirting boards is the last thing you feel like doing. That is exactly why it gets skipped, and exactly why it becomes an argument six months later.
Meter readings: the date matters more than the number
A reading on its own says nothing. The meaning is in the difference between two dates. If you note that the electricity meter read 41,238 on handover day, the next settlement does not require guesswork about where one tenancy ends and the next begins.
Photograph the meter as well, do not only write the number down. The difference between a typed figure and a photographed dial is that one of them can be questioned.
The photo run that fits in ten minutes
Walk the flat in one direction and take a wide shot of every room. Then go back and take close-ups of the usual suspects: worktop, taps, sealant, the bottom of the window frames, the wall behind the radiators. If something is already damaged, photograph it clearly — that photo protects the tenant as much as it protects you.
Keys, locks, codes
- How many keys were handed over, and of what kind (front door, gate, mailbox, storage).
- Whether the lock was changed, and if so when and by whom.
- Gate and alarm codes — and whether you changed them when the last tenant left.
Changing the lock is the expense people resent and then pay anyway after one unpleasant experience. If you do not change it, at least record that you did not — because two tenants later, that is the question.
The email that makes it count
Send the photos and the numbers to the tenant the same day, in one email, and ask them to confirm. No legal language needed: "Attached are the handover photos and meter readings. If anything looks wrong, tell me within two days." If they do not, that silence is evidence in itself.
What you see after six months
Recording all this has a side effect nobody expects: you find out what actually keeps breaking. If the same tap fails for the third time across three tenants, that is not bad luck, that is a bad tap. The pattern is only visible if the repairs were written down.
In Housefolio, a meter reading is stored with its date, and the list shows the usage between two readings — no arithmetic needed at settlement.