ABOUT

I'm Waqas Shahban. I run Capital Complete Solutions — an AIIC-accredited property inventory and inspection business working out of Stechford in east Birmingham.

This blog is the working notebook. The business itself lives at www.capital-cs.com; what you'll find here is the stuff I end up explaining on the phone twice a week. What an adjudicator wants to see. When a Legionella assessment is actually needed. Why a check-out report on its own proves nothing.

The problem I set the business up to fix

There's a race to the bottom in this trade and it's been going on for years. Clerks compete on price, so reports get thinner, so landlords get less for their money — and none of it shows up until somebody challenges a deduction.

By then it's too late. You can't go back and photograph a property as it was eighteen months ago. Whatever was written down at the start is all you've got, and if it says "kitchen — good condition" you have nothing.

Capital was set up in 2021 to work the other way round: detailed, property-specific, photographed inventory reports written to survive a challenge. Accredited, insured and genuinely independent — which is the bit that makes the report count when somebody else is deciding.

What we actually do

  • Inventory reports — the schedule of condition before anyone moves in
  • Check-in inspections — walk-round with the tenant, meters read, report signed
  • Check-out inspections — line-by-line comparison at the end of the tenancy
  • Mid-term and routine inspections — catching problems while they're still small
  • Legionella risk assessments — the water-safety duty landlords hold
  • EPCs — assessed, rated and lodged on the national register

Who we work for

Letting agents and property managers who need cover they can rely on. Portfolio landlords who want one standard across every property instead of a different clerk on each. First-time landlords who just want it done properly. Student and HMO landlords through the summer crunch.

Where

Birmingham and the wider West Midlands, plus Warwickshire, Staffordshire and Worcestershire. We come to the property — Solihull, Sutton Coldfield, Coventry, Tamworth, Lichfield, Cannock and everywhere between.

Capital Complete Solutions
113 Victoria Road, Stechford, Birmingham, B33 8AN
Tel & WhatsApp: 0121 582 4070
Email: info@capital-cs.com
Web: https://www.capital-cs.com
AIIC-accredited · Fully insured · Established 2021

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Check-In and Check-Out: Why One Without the Other Proves Nothing

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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...
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What a Check-In Inspection Covers

A check-in inspection is the record made on the day a tenant moves in. It confirms the condition of the property, room by room, so that both sides start the tenancy with the same agreed picture. Without that record, an end-of-tenancy argument about damage or cleaning comes down to memory, and memory rarely settles anything. The clerk walks through the property with the tenant, noting the condition of walls, floors, ceilings, fixtures and fittings, and taking photographs as they go. Furniture and appliances are listed where they form part of the let, and any existing marks are written down plainly rather than glossed over. The point is detail: a note that says a wall is marked, and where, is far more useful later than a note that just says the room is in good condition. Meter readings for gas, electricity and water are recorded and photographed, the keys and fobs handed over are listed, and the smoke and carbon monoxide alarms are checked and noted as working on the day. Gardens, garage...
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Do I Really Need a Legionella Risk Assessment for a Two-Bed Flat?

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This is the question I get asked more than any other, usually by someone who has just been told about it by their letting agent and is slightly annoyed. "It's a two-bed flat with a combi boiler. There's no tank. Do I actually need this, or is it a way of selling me something?" Fair question. Here's the honest answer. What the duty actually is Landlords have a legal duty under health and safety law to assess and control the risk of Legionella bacteria in the water systems of properties they let. That duty applies to residential lets. It isn't new, it isn't optional, and it doesn't come with a size threshold. But — and this is the part nobody explains properly — the duty is to assess and control the risk . It is not a duty to have the water tested, to hold a certificate, or to bring somebody in every year regardless. Two things follow from that: One. Anyone selling you an annual "Legionella test" with a laboratory sample for a st...
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