Move-out inspection, defined: the end-of-tenancy walk-through that compares the property against the move-in record and decides what, if anything, comes off the deposit.
A move-out inspection is the inspection of a rental property at the end of a tenancy, carried out once the tenant has removed their belongings and before or on the day the keys are returned. It records the current condition of every room and item and sets it against the move-in inspection to show what has changed. The wording is North American; UK and Irish letting agents call it a check-out report.
The definition matters because a move-out inspection is a comparison, not a fresh survey. Without a move-in record to compare against, it can describe damage but cannot prove the tenant caused it, and a deduction with no proof does not survive a deposit dispute.
What a move-out inspection compares
The inspector works through the same rooms and items as the move-in record, in the same order, and notes three things per item: condition now, condition at move-in, and the reason for any difference. Meter readings are taken and photographed. Keys are counted against the number handed over. Cleanliness is compared with the standard recorded at the start, since a tenant only has to return the property as clean as they received it.
The differences then fall into three buckets:
- Fair wear and tear: the decline you expect from normal living over the length of the tenancy. Faded curtains, light scuffs in a hallway, a carpet flattened where a sofa stood. Not deductible.
- Damage: a burn on a worktop, a cracked basin, a door kicked off its hinge, a garden left knee-high. Deductible, but only for the loss actually suffered.
- Cleaning and missing items: a cooker returned dirty, a missing lamp or set of keys. Deductible at the cost of putting it right.
How a move-out inspection works
The tenant is told the date in writing and invited to attend, because a report the tenant witnessed is far harder to dispute. The property is inspected empty, in daylight where possible. Photos are taken of every item the move-in record covered, plus close-ups of anything changed. The report is written on the day, sent to the tenant, and any proposed deductions are itemised with a cost and a reason.
Where the tenant has already left the area, some landlords and agents ask the tenant to capture the property themselves on the last day through a guided link, and then do their own walk-through afterwards. The two records together close the gap in which "it was fine when I left" and "it was like this when we arrived" usually live.
Move-out inspection example: the bedroom carpet
A tenant leaves a house after four years. The move-out inspection finds a large make-up stain on the main bedroom carpet that was not in the move-in record. The landlord wants the full cost of a new carpet.
The adjudicator agrees the stain is damage, not wear, because the move-in photos show the carpet clean. The adjudicator does not agree the landlord gets a new carpet. The carpet was several years old when the tenancy started, has a limited useful life, and replacing an aged carpet with a new one at the tenant's expense would leave the landlord better off than before. That is betterment, and schemes do not allow it. The award is a proportion of the replacement cost, reflecting the remaining life the carpet had left.
What a move-out inspection does not do, and the mistakes that cost landlords
It does not decide the deposit. It produces the evidence. The tenant can still disagree, and in that case a scheme adjudicator or, in Ireland, the Residential Tenancies Board decides.
It does not entitle the landlord to like-for-like new. Every claim is reduced for the age and expected life of the item.
The recurring mistakes:
- Doing the move-out days after the keys came back, once contractors have been in.
- Photographs with no date and no way to tell which room or item they show.
- Claiming for wear and tear as if it were damage, which weakens the whole claim in the adjudicator's eyes.
- No costed breakdown: "cleaning and repairs, 600" without invoices or quotes.
- Not sending the report to the tenant, so there is no record they had the chance to respond.
Where the move-out record goes
The report goes to the tenant with the proposed deductions. If both agree, the deposit scheme releases the money; in England and Wales the deposit has to be returned within ten days of agreement. If they do not agree, either party raises a dispute with the scheme holding the deposit, and the adjudicator rules on the balance of probabilities from the documents alone: check-in report, check-out report, inventory, dated photos, invoices and the tenancy agreement. The party proposing the deduction has to prove it; the tenant does not have to prove innocence.
Related entries: tenancy deposit, condition grading, and the move-in inspection and inventory report (tenancy) entries in this glossary. For the capture side of the record, see rental condition reports.
Venta Capture, a product of VentaVid, is one way to run the tenant-led route: the tenant is sent a secure, personal capture link, follows the guided steps in the mobile browser with no app and no account, and the submission arrives timestamped and sealed for the landlord or agent to review, with a copy that can go back to the tenant so both sides hold the same record. Details at the Venta Capture pages.
In practice: see how guided video capture works in Venta Capture.