How many photos should a check-in inventory have?

Enough that every wall, floor, ceiling, fixture and appliance appears at least once, plus close-ups of any existing damage. For a two-bedroom flat that's often 100 to 200 photos.

Is a video walk-through enough?

A video is a useful extra, but photos are easier to compare and to put in a report. Take both.

Who should take the photos, the landlord or the tenant?

Both, ideally. Tenants should take their own photos on moving in, even when the landlord provides an inventory, and send them to the landlord or agent within the first few days.

Check-In and Check-Out Photos: Protect Your Tenancy Deposit

Most deposit disputes come down to one question: what was the property like on the first day? Here's how to answer it with photos nobody can argue with.

Whether you're a tenant who wants your deposit back or a landlord who needs to show damage, the evidence is the same: clear, dated photos of the property at the start and end of the tenancy, matched room by room.

Why dates matter in deposit disputes

In England and Wales, deposits for most assured shorthold tenancies must be protected in a government-approved scheme (DPS, mydeposits or TDS), and Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own schemes. When landlord and tenant can't agree, the scheme's free dispute service decides, mostly on written evidence: the inventory, the check-in and check-out reports, and photos. Photos without a reliable date, or that might have been taken at another time, carry little weight. Rules differ in other countries, but the same kind of evidence helps everywhere.

Check-in: photograph everything

Do it on the day the tenancy starts, before furniture and boxes move in.
Go room by room, in the same order each time. Take a wide shot from each corner, then each wall, the floor and the ceiling.
Close-ups of anything already worn or damaged: marks, scratches, chips, stains, holes, mould, with something for scale.
Fixtures and appliances: the oven inside and out, the fridge, the hob, the bath and shower, the toilet, taps, windows and their locks, radiators.
Meters: gas, electricity and water readings, clearly readable.
Keys, smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, the garden and outside areas.
Match the inventory. If the inventory says "carpet stained by window", there should be a photo of it.

Share the photos with the other party straight away, by email or as one PDF, so nobody can say later they never saw them.

Check-out: the same photos again

At the end of the tenancy, repeat the same walk-round from the same spots and angles, so each photo can be compared with its check-in pair. Photograph the cleaning (or the lack of it), new damage, and anything left behind. Fair wear and tear, such as carpets worn where people walk, small scuffs and faded paint, isn't the tenant's to pay for, and side-by-side photos make the difference clear.

Make the dates impossible to argue with

The argument is rarely about what a photo shows; it's about when it was taken. A tenant says the stain was already there; a landlord says it wasn't. A phone's dates can be changed, and they're lost when photos are sent on WhatsApp, so take inventory photos with a camera that stamps the verified date, time and address onto each picture.

With Timesnap, every photo shows the real time and the property's address, and has a code that the other party, an agent or an adjudicator can check on timesnap.info, including whether any part of the photo was changed.

The date, time and address stay on a Timesnap photo for good. The online check is kept for 30 days with the free app, or a year with Pro, so for a long tenancy, keep the original photos and share them, or a PDF of them, at check-in.

Take photos with the real time and place on them: get the free Timesnap camera.

Put it all in one report

Combine the photos into one PDF per room or per visit with Images to PDF, add page numbers, and sign it with Sign PDF, ideally both of you. Keep the original photo files as well as the PDF.

Check-in and check-out photos that protect your deposit