Move-In Checklist: The Record That Decides Your Deposit
The only document from day one still worth money at the end. What to write down, what to photograph, and the state where skipping it costs the landlord.
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The move-in checklist is the only document from the start of a tenancy that will still be worth money at the end of it. Everything you argue about when you leave — the scuff, the stain, the chip in the worktop — comes down to whether anyone wrote it down on the first day.
Do it before you unpack. Once your furniture is in, you cannot photograph the floor, and after a week nobody believes the mark was already there.
In Washington it is not optional
Most states treat the checklist as good practice. Washington treats it as a
condition: under Rev. Code Wash. § 59.18.260 a landlord who did not give you
a written checklist at the start cannot keep any of the deposit at the end, whatever condition
you leave the place in. If you rent there and nobody handed you one, ask in writing and keep
the reply — either you get the document or you get evidence that you did not.
The first forty-eight hours
- Walk the empty unit with the form. If the landlord offers to do it with you, accept; two signatures are worth more than one.
- Write down everything, including things you do not care about. A checklist that lists only three faults reads as careless. One that lists twenty reads as thorough, and the twenty are what protect you.
- Photograph and date it. Wide shot of each room, then the close-ups.
- Both sign, and keep a copy. A checklist only you hold is still better than nothing, but a countersigned one ends arguments.
- Send it by email anyway. That timestamps it with a third party, which a signature on paper does not.
What to write down
Record condition, not just existence. “Carpet” is useless; “carpet worn through in doorway, two stains near window” is evidence.
- Walls and ceilings: marks, cracks, previous filler, nail holes already there.
- Floors: wear in doorways, scratches, loose boards, carpet seams.
- Worktops, tiles, grout, sealant.
- Paint: note where it is fresh, because fresh paint at move-in undermines a repainting charge later.
- Every tap, every flush, water pressure, how long the hot water takes.
- Every appliance, switched on, not just looked at.
- Heating and air conditioning, run for a few minutes.
- Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms — press the button.
- Every lock, window catch and door that should close properly.
- Count the keys, fobs and remotes you were given and write the number down.
- Whether the locks appear to have been changed since the last tenant.
- Balcony, garage, storage locker, garden.
- Behind and under the fridge and the cooker.
- Inside cupboards and the oven.
- Utility meter readings, photographed on day one.
If nobody gives you a form
Make your own and send it. A dated email listing what you found, with photographs attached, does the same job as a printed checklist and is harder to lose.
One line is enough to open it: “Here is the condition of the unit as I found it today. Please let me know within seven days if you disagree with anything on this list.” Silence then works for you rather than against you.
Then put it somewhere you will find it
A year or three from now you will need this at exactly the moment you are busy moving out. Keep it with the lease, in the cloud rather than on a phone you might replace, and with the photographs still carrying their original timestamps. When the time comes, it is the thing you hold the move-out inspection against, and the reason a deduction has to be proved rather than asserted.
This page explains general rules and is not legal advice. What a landlord must document, and when, is set by your state and sometimes your city.
What does your lease say you are taking on?
Upload it and get the condition clause, what you are responsible for maintaining and what the landlord may charge for — quoted from your own document, on the day you move in rather than the day you move out.
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