Check-In and Check-Out: Why One Without the Other Proves Nothing
Here's a conversation I've had more times than I can count. A landlord rings up after a tenancy has ended. There's damage. They want a report so they can claim against the deposit. I ask what the inventory said at the start. Long pause. Sometimes there isn't one. Sometimes there is one, but it's four paragraphs long and says things like "bathroom: clean and tidy". Either way, the answer is the same, and it's not the one they want: a check-out report on its own proves almost nothing. Two reports, two different jobs People treat these as one service split in half. They're not. They do completely different things and neither works alone. The inventory and check-in establishes the baseline. This is what the property is, what's in it, and what condition every part of it is in on the day the tenant takes it on. It's a factual record made before anyone has lived there. The check-out is a comparison. It doesn't judge the proper...