Move-In Inventory Template That Holds Up in Disputes

A tenant moves out after fourteen months. The kitchen wall has a faint yellow tint near the stove, the bathroom door has a small dent, and one of the kitchen drawers no longer closes flush. You want to keep part of the deposit. The tenant says it was all there when they moved in. Who wins?

A move-in inventory is the dated, signed document that records the exact condition of an apartment and its contents when a tenant takes possession, with photographic evidence attached. In most jurisdictions, it is the most decisive piece of evidence in any future deposit dispute — because the burden of proving that damage was caused by the tenant typically sits with the landlord.

This article gives you a working template, plus the photo standards, signature workflow, and wear-and-tear distinctions that decide whether a deposit deduction holds up if challenged.

Why the inventory carries the legal weight it does

In most jurisdictions, a landlord who wants to deduct from a deposit has to demonstrate two things: the damage exists now, and it did not exist at the start. The second half is the one that gets lost.

Without a detailed move-in inventory signed by both parties, you are arguing from memory against a tenant also arguing from memory. Most small-claims tribunals and rent boards resolve that ambiguity in favor of the tenant — because they are the party with less institutional power, and because the landlord is the party who chose not to document the starting state.

A proper inventory flips that. Now the document and the photos do the arguing for you. The conversation moves from “did this dent exist?” to “the move-in photos show no dent — the dent is new.” A much shorter conversation.

There is no universal legal template that fits every country, but the structural elements below are recognized everywhere a deposit framework exists.

What the inventory must actually contain

The template is room-by-room. Inside each room, you cover surfaces, then fixtures, then anything movable.

Header (one page, top of document):

• Full address of the property, including unit or room number
• Names of all parties (landlord, all named tenants, any agent present)
• Date and start time of the walk-through
• Lease start date if different
• Number of keys handed over, by type (front door, apartment door, mailbox, garage, building gate)
• Meter readings: electricity, gas, water, heating if separately metered
• Smoke alarm and CO alarm: present yes/no, tested yes/no, date of test
• Heating system: type and last-service date if known

Per room (one block per room):

• Room name (Kitchen, Bedroom 1, Bathroom, Hallway, Balcony)
• Floor: material, condition, any marks
• Walls: paint color, condition, any holes, marks, or repairs
• Ceiling: condition, any stains
• Windows: number, frames, glass, blinds or shutters condition
• Doors: condition of door, frame, handle, lock
• Electrical: outlets count and working, light fixtures, switches
• Heating element in the room: radiator or vent condition
• Fixtures specific to the room (taps, toilet, shower, hood, sink)

Appliances (one line each):

• Type, brand if visible, model if visible
• Working: yes / no / partially (describe)
• Visible condition: scratches, dents, stains
• Accessories included (oven trays, fridge shelves, washing machine manual)

Furniture (one line each, if furnished):

• Item, location in the apartment
• Condition (specific, not “good”)
• Any pre-existing marks

Attachments:

• Photo references (file names or numbers) keyed to each item or room
• Copies of appliance manuals or warranty cards if handed over
• A floor plan with rooms labeled is a nice-to-have

A template that includes these blocks for every room will hold up almost anywhere a deposit framework exists. What changes between jurisdictions is the procedural overlay — who needs to sign, what witnesses are required, whether a registered professional is involved — not the substance of what gets documented.

Photographic standards that actually work as evidence

A photo of a wall taken from across the room proves almost nothing in a dispute. A photo of a scratch taken from twelve centimeters away, with the date visible, proves a lot. The difference is in how you shoot.

The shooting protocol that follows is the same one in photo-documenting damages: the 4-shot rule, applied preventively at move-in rather than reactively at move-out.

Per room, take in this order:

1. One wide-angle establishing shot from each of the four corners. This shows the room context.
2. One medium shot of each wall straight-on. This is where future damage gets compared.
3. Close-ups of every existing defect, even minor ones. The point is not to make the apartment look bad — it is to make it impossible for anyone to claim, later, that a new mark “was already there.”
4. Inside every cabinet, drawer, oven, fridge, and washing machine. Yes, all of them. Drawer interiors and oven racks are the items most often disputed at move-out because they are the items most often ignored at move-in.
5. Each appliance from at least two angles, with serial-number plate visible where possible.
6. Meter readings, with the numbers clearly readable, plus a wider shot showing which meter it is.

Technical standards:

• Date-stamped if the phone allows, or rely on file metadata (EXIF) — admissible but challengeable, so paired tenant+landlord photo sets taken simultaneously strengthen evidentiary weight
• Sufficient resolution — modern smartphones are fine, but check that close-ups are sharp before you leave
• Multiple angles for anything with depth (dents, chips, three-dimensional damage)
• Natural light where possible, with the flash on for dim corners (bathrooms, inside cabinets)
• Geolocation can be left on or off — it is rarely the deciding factor, but it does not hurt

A practical baseline: a small one-bedroom apartment will produce 60–100 photos. A larger furnished unit can easily produce 200+. That is correct. Storage is cheap; a lost deposit is not. For how the photo walk-through fits into the broader key-day session, see the tenant handover meeting.

Two sets of photos taken by both parties at the same time is stronger than one set by the landlord alone. Encourage the tenant to take their own and to keep them — the symmetry is part of what makes the inventory defensible.

If you want a single place to keep the signed PDF, the photos, and the deposit record tied to one contract, Plinthos attaches documents (PDF/JPEG/PNG up to 20MB) to the apartment, tracks the deposit and any deductions with notes and photos, and stores it on EU servers. See how it works.

Signatures, initials, and the written grace window

A document with no signature is just a draft. A document with one signature is a one-sided statement. The inventory needs both parties — and a procedural detail that often gets skipped.

Signature workflow:

1. Both landlord and tenant initial each page of the inventory. Initials on each page block a future argument that “page 3 was added later.”
2. Both parties sign the final page with full signatures, printed name, and date.
3. If the apartment has multiple named tenants on the lease, every named tenant signs, not just one. If only one signs, you have an inventory that is enforceable against one tenant and contested by the others.
4. Two copies are made (or a single PDF is shared digitally). Each party keeps one.

The written grace window. This is the detail that distinguishes a defensible inventory from one a tenant can credibly contest. After the walk-through, give the tenant a written grace window — commonly 7 to 10 days, sometimes shorter for short-term or longer for furnished units — varies by jurisdiction and should be specified in the lease. The tenant uses this period to add observations they noticed after settling in. A heater that does not warm up properly, a tap with low pressure, a window that does not close fully — these often surface in the first nights.

The grace window matters for two reasons. It produces a more accurate record, which is what you actually want. And it removes the tenant’s ability to say later, “I didn’t have time to notice.” When the lease specifies a written window and the tenant did not use it, anything reported six months later carries far less weight in a dispute.

In practice: the tenant sends written observations (a signed PDF or a message in a documented channel), you acknowledge them in writing, and the additions become an addendum, dated and signed. In most jurisdictions, written confirmations carry more weight than spoken ones — even where one-party recording of conversations is legally common.

Wear-and-tear vs damage — the universal grey zone

This is the distinction that decides most disputes, and it is also the one where most landlords lose money trying to claim things they cannot.

Fair wear and tear is gradual deterioration from normal use. A landlord cannot deduct for it. Examples:

• Paint dulled or faintly yellowed after several years of normal life
• Carpet flattened in walking paths between rooms
• Minor scuffs on walls at chair-back or door-handle height
• Small marks where pictures were hung with standard fixings
• A worn-down worktop near the sink after years of use
• Limescale on taps that comes off with normal cleaning

Damage goes beyond normal use, is caused by the tenant or someone they let in, and requires a repair or replacement that would not have been needed otherwise. Examples:

• A burn mark on the worktop from a hot pan placed directly on it
• A large stain on the carpet that no cleaning has removed
• A hole in the wall larger than a standard picture fixing
• A cracked tile, a broken mirror, a torn blind
• Limescale so thick that taps must be replaced rather than cleaned
• Pet damage on doors, skirting boards, or floors

The honest grey zone is somewhere between these two lists. A wall with twelve small marks looks like wear; a wall with two large dark stains looks like damage. A landlord who tries to claim the first usually loses; one who documents the second usually wins.

How the inventory helps: it removes any argument about the starting state. If the move-in photos show clean cream walls and the move-out photos show two large dark stains, the only remaining question is one of cause — a much narrower fight than “was it always like this?”

Tenancy length matters too. After several years, almost any wall will need repainting. Trying to charge a tenant for repainting after four years rarely holds up. Trying to charge for a fresh burn mark in month six usually does.

What to leave out of the inventory

Some things make the document weaker, not stronger.

Subjective descriptors. “Good condition,” “clean,” “well-maintained” mean nothing in a dispute. Replace them with specifics: “no visible marks on the four walls, paint color cream, three small fixings near the window already filled.”

Vague catch-alls. “Everything in working order” comes back to bite. List each appliance separately and state its working status individually.

Emotional language. “Beautifully renovated” or “lovely view” do not belong in an inventory. Keep it observational.

Conditions you cannot verify. If a tenant claims an appliance does not work but it works for you, write what you both observed: “Tested in presence of both parties on [date], appliance powered on and ran a 5-minute cycle.” Do not record a contested claim as a fact.

Move-out: the comparison inventory

The move-in inventory does most of its work months or years later, when the tenancy ends. The move-out walk-through follows the same template, in the same order, with the same photo standards.

The comparison should be a side-by-side: each item from move-in, the same item at move-out, the difference, and the proposed treatment (no deduction / partial deduction / replacement). Photo references on both sides.

In most jurisdictions, deposit deductions must be documented in writing and supported by evidence (photos, repair quotes, invoices). A comparison inventory makes this almost mechanical: the deductions you propose are tied directly to a documented change between the two photo sets. Returning the deposit faster, with clear documentation of any deductions, is one of the quietest ways to avoid a tribunal claim — most disputes are filed because the tenant felt the deduction was opaque, not because the amount itself was excessive.

For the broader context of what happens around move-in, see Tenant Onboarding: The First 7 Days That Set the Tone.

Frequently asked questions

Is a paper inventory better than a digital one?

Neither is inherently better. A signed PDF with attached photos, stored in two places (one offline, one cloud), is usually more practical than a paper document — paper gets lost, fades, and is harder to share if a tribunal asks for it later. What matters is that both parties have signed (whether physically or with a recognized electronic signature), that the photos are linked to the document, and that nothing in the chain depends on a single device.

Do I need a professional to draft the inventory?

In some jurisdictions a registered professional is involved or recommended; in others, a thorough self-drafted inventory signed by both parties is sufficient. The template in this article is what a professional would produce anyway. The procedural overlay — who must sign, whether a witness is required — varies, and is worth checking locally if the deposit is significant.

What if the tenant refuses to sign the inventory?

A refusal to sign is itself a signal. Document the refusal in writing, send a copy of the inventory to the tenant by a traceable method, and note the date. In most jurisdictions, an inventory the tenant was given and did not contest within a reasonable window carries weight even without their signature — but procedural details vary. If the deposit is significant and the tenant refuses to sign, consider whether the tenancy should proceed at all.

Can the inventory cover common areas in a shared apartment?

Yes, and it should. Where multiple tenants have private rooms but share a kitchen and bathroom, the inventory should cover both the private room (per-tenant) and the common areas (signed by all current tenants jointly). Updating the common-area inventory when one tenant leaves and another arrives is part of what keeps the deposit framework workable in shared housing.

Closing

The move-in inventory feels disproportionate to the moment — sixty photographs and four signed pages for a walk-through under two hours. The payoff is asymmetric. Most of the time the document sits in a folder and nothing happens. Occasionally, a tenancy ends in dispute, and the document does the entire job of defending a deposit deduction or a tenant’s claim to a full refund.

Building it once, properly, into a template you reuse for every new tenancy is the practical move. Plinthos keeps the deposit record (amount, date, partial or full return with notes and photos) tied to each contract, alongside the apartment’s documents and contract calendar. See features.

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This article is informational and does not substitute legal advice. Deposit rules, signature requirements, and dispute procedures vary significantly by country and region. For specific cases — contested deductions, large deposits, formal tribunal proceedings — consult a local lawyer or landlord association.