A Completely Free App to Speed Up Inventories

To anyone outside the lettings industry, taking inventory may seem an easy job. It’s just a case of just getting a clipboard and walking from one room to the next making a note of things as you go. That’s it, isn’t it?

Well, of course, as an insider you will know that it isn’t as simple as that. We wish! There is a lot more to taking inventory and taking it accurately than meets the eye. A whole section of industy exists in the form of inventory companies who take their instructions form mainly letting agents but now increasingly from landlords directly too.

Quite a number of letting agents prefer to outsource their inventory because of the amount of time it can take doing it in-house. When you are managing 300 or 400 properties, doing inventory is a full-time job for someone, so outsourcing it may be the best option. Many inventory clerks are members of a professional body such as the Association of Independent Inventory Clerks or ARLA Propertymark Inventories both of which run training courses and offer a qualification/accreditation route. In addition, both organisations need members to carry indemnity insurance so letting agents can handover work with peace of mind.

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Why You Need A Free Schedule Of Condition App If You Are A Landlord

When you are a landlord with a couple of properties that you let, or perhaps five or six, you are probably only too well aware that you need to carry out inventory on a regular basis. Your tenants are required to pay a deposit, and you are entitled to claim the cost of any repairs from that deposit if they cause damage to your property.

So far, so good. But you can only do that if they agree that the damage is their fault and not fair wear and tear. Unfortunately, the fact is that tenant disputes have increased dramatically over the last few years since the introduction of the Tenant Deposit Scheme because both tenants and landlords have realised that it costs nothing to begin a dispute.

This is why carrying out inventory on a regular basis has become so much more important. If you have got records to show exactly what condition everything was in at the beginning of the tenancy and at the end, along with interim records and photographs to go with them, then your chances of making a valid claim increase considerably. 

The problem is that, unless you are an experienced landlord, you may not know how to go about carrying out inventory the correct way.

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There’s An App For That!

It’s true. There is an app for very many things these days. There are thousands and thousands of them to deal with all sorts of problems, and many of them are free to download to your mobile, tablet, laptop, or whatever. Technology has made our lives much easier in many respects in the 21^st century.

Many of these apps are available on the App Store and/or Google Play, and quite a lot of them are available on both. They will work with both iPhone and Android in most instances, so it doesn’t matter which you use. You simply download the app that you wish to use – in some cases there is a small fee – and away you go.

If you are a letting agent, you may or may not know that you can get a property inventory app which will save you a lot of time when taking inventory. Carrying out inventory can be very time-consuming, especially if your landlords let a property fully furnished. There are so many things to take into consideration. It is bad enough when a property is let empty, but when it is fully furnished it can easily take an hour or two to do the inventory.

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Carrying Out A Condition Report Can Be Time-Consuming

One of the biggest problems that a letting agent has to face is carrying out inventory, otherwise known as a condition report. Inventory has to be carried out right at the beginning of a tenancy, ideally on the same day that the tenant moves in, and with the tenant present. It also needs to be carried out on the day the tenant moves out, again also with the tenant present if possible.

In addition, of course, interim condition reports need to be carried out during the life of the tenancy. Just how often these should be conducted are a matter of some debate. Some letting agents say they should be carried out annually, others every six months, and some say every three months. Perhaps every three months is a little too often, and the tenant may also find it tedious. However, every six months is reasonable.

No matter, the fact is that as a letting agent you can spend a lot of time carrying out inventory, particularly if you look after, say, 300 or 400 properties. Even if you only carry out a condition report every six months, that is still a lot of time doing inventory. If your landlords let properties empty then that is time-consuming enough, but if they let their properties furnished it can become a full-time job.

Traditionally, of course, inventory has been done with nothing more than a clipboard and a biro, and also a small camera. Today, however, we have moved into the 21^st century and we have technology which can help considerably. There are apps which you can download on to a mobile phone or tablet which can help to save a considerable amount of time taking inventory. Furthermore, some of them are free to use!

They will guide an inventory clerk through each room making suggestions as to what to check. The clerk can either type in his comments, or in the case of some apps there is an audio feature when he can just speak his comments and then type them out when he gets back to the office later on.

Will the Tenant Fees Act Result in Inventories Being Taken Back In-House?

Back in the day, there were no such things as inventory companies, and letting agents had to undertake inventory on their own. This meant employing an inventory clerk, or clerks, and supplying them with a clipboard, paper, biros, and a camera. The inventory clerk may also have had other duties to attend to and, bearing in mind that you had to send rolls of film off to have the photos produced, completing a full inventory could take from several days to a couple of weeks.

Then along came inventory companies who did nothing else but carry out inventory, so letting agents who used their services didn’t need to employ their own inventory clerks. However, the introduction of the Tenant Fees Act 2019 may well encourage some agents to take inventory back in-house, and it has been suggested that this may result in inventories not being as accurate as those done by an independent company.

However, writing in The Negotiator magazine (https://flickread.com/edition/html/free/5cc80db634c3f#45) , Frances Burkinshaw says that she started her business in the 1970s when there were no inventory companies and she employed her own inventory clerks and trained them thoroughly. She said that times changed, and she invested in technology, doubtless using a free inventory clerk app such as the Reports2Go app, but that she would never be persuaded that an outside company would do a better job.

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A Free App Will Save You A Lot Of Time On Inventory

When you are a managing agent looking after many properties on behalf of your landlord clients, possibly one of the worst jobs that you have to do is carrying out inventory. And yet it is an essential part of your work.

It is one of the worst jobs because it can be extremely time-consuming. It is repetitive. And one might say boring. Yet it is important because it is vital to note any damage that the tenant has caused to the property during the tenancy. Equally, from the tenant’s point of view, it is necessary to take note of fair wear and tear. This happens to all properties, and the tenant cannot be expected to pay for wear and tear which will automatically happen in a property as time passes.

Certainly, under the TDS, the tenant has provided a deposit for the precise purpose of the landlord being able to recover the cost of repairs to damages caused by the tenant, but that cannot be claimed without some evidence. The tenant can go to arbitration and it costs him or her nothing, so it is almost in his interests to do so. The only way that you can supply evidence of damage on behalf of your client is through carrying out inventories at check-in and check-out, and on regular inspections in between. 

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If You Are A Landlord, A Check-In Report Is Vital

Whether you are a landlord who owns a property or a number of properties, it is essential that you carry out what is known as a check-in report. This is simply an inventory of the condition of your property at the point that your tenant moved in and is designed to ensure that if the tenant causes damage during the course of the tenancy you can claim damages for repair work to be carried out. This applies to the property itself and also to any furniture, white goods, and so on that you own but that are there for the tenant to use.

Any such damages are to be deducted from the initial deposit that the tenant is required to pay you under the Tenancy Deposit Scheme and is there for both your protection and that of your tenant.

A check-in report is a written report of the condition of the property at the beginning of the tenancy and is usually followed up by interim reports every year or so that will show any damage cause by the tenant. It also protects the tenant because the interim reports will show fair wear and tear for which the tenant cannot be held responsible.

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