Landlords
Preparing your property for new tenants
A practical checklist for the fortnight before a tenancy starts — the work that prevents most first-month problems.
The handover is the part of a tenancy landlords most often underestimate. A property that is genuinely ready on day one sets the tone for everything that follows.
Clean properly, then clean the things nobody cleans: inside the oven, behind the fridge, window frames, extractor filters. Tenants judge the standard they're expected to return the property in by the standard they receive it in.
Check that everything works, physically, one item at a time. Every ring on the hob, every radiator, every window catch, the shower at full temperature, the door locks with the keys you're handing over. Test smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and replace batteries.
Sort the keys. Enough sets for every tenant, labelled, plus any window, meter or communal keys. Missing keys generate more first-week calls than anything else.
Leave information behind. Where the stopcock, fuse board and meters are; how the heating and hot water are controlled; which day the bins go out; instructions for the boiler and any appliances. Ten minutes of writing saves a dozen phone calls.
Document the condition. A dated inventory with photographs, agreed at the start, is the difference between a straightforward deposit return and an argument.
Then make the first contact easy. Tenants who know exactly who to call, and get an answer when they do, tend to report the small leak early rather than after the ceiling has come down.