Free move-in and move-out checklist

What is a move-out checklist?

It is a written record of the condition of a rental unit, area by area, made when a tenant leaves. On its own it is half a document. The half that settles arguments is the matching record made when they arrived, which is why the sheet above carries both: the same list of areas, rated twice, with the two ratings side by side. A landlord who can show what the kitchen looked like on day one and what it looked like on the last day has an answer. A landlord with only the last day has an opinion.

Why move-in and move-out belong on one sheet

Because the question is never "what condition is the unit in", it is "what changed". Two separate documents make you hold both up to the light and compare them line by line, and they drift: the move-in sheet lists eleven areas, the move-out sheet lists nine, and the two you cannot compare are the two you are arguing about. One sheet with two columns forces the same list on both walks and does the comparison for you.

It also fixes the ordering problem. The move-in walk is the one everybody skips, because on the day a tenant moves in the unit is clean and there is nothing to write down. That is exactly when the record is worth making, and starting the sheet then is what makes the move-out column meaningful a year later.

What goes on a move-out checklist

Six things, which is what the form above is built around:

• Who the tenant is, the full address and the unit
• The date of each walk, so every rating is anchored to a day
• Every area of the unit, rated at move-in and again at move-out
• A note per area for anything specific enough to recognise later
• Meter readings and the keys, fobs and remotes handed back
• Both signatures, and the tenant's forwarding address

The notes column carries more weight than the ratings do. "Poor" is a word two people can read differently. "Burn mark on the counter left of the sink, about the size of a coin" is not.

Move-out checklist sample

This is what the form above produces, from the fields alone. Nothing here was written by hand.

Four areas, two of them worse, and both of those carry a note that says what specifically changed. That is a document you could hand to somebody who has never seen the unit and have them understand the position in a minute.

Wear and tear, or damage?

This is the line every deposit conversation ends up on, and no checklist decides it for you. What the checklist does is give the conversation facts to work with: the condition you both agreed on at the start, the condition at the end, and a note describing the difference. Carpet that thinned along a hallway over three years reads differently from a carpet with a tear in it, and the sheet lets both readings be tested against what was written down at move-in rather than what anyone remembers. What normal wear and tear means covers how that difference is usually read, and what makes a deduction defensible.

Where the line actually sits is set by your own state and local law, and by what a court in your area treats as reasonable. Do not take a national number or a national rule from anyone, including us. Look up your own state's landlord and tenant statute, read what the requester or your lease says, and ask a local landlord association or a lawyer if a specific deduction matters enough to argue about.

Deposit rules are local, so check yours

Nothing on this page tells you how long you have to return a deposit, what you may deduct, whether you owe interest on it, or whether you have to give notice before an inspection. Those four vary more between states than anything else in renting, and a page that answered them for everybody would be wrong for most readers. Your state's own statute or housing agency is the source; use this checklist for the record, and use that for the rules.

Two habits travel everywhere, though. Write the record on the day you walk the unit, not from memory afterwards. And get the tenant to sign it, at both ends of the tenancy, because a condition report both parties signed is worth more than a better one only you have seen.

Landlord checklist or tenant checklist?

Same walk, different reason for doing it. A landlord uses the sheet to record condition and settle the deposit. A tenant uses it to prove they left the place as they found it, and to make sure the damage they are being charged for was already there on the day they moved in. Both are served by the same document, which is why the version above has a signature line for each of you rather than a verdict from one of you.

If you are the tenant, fill it in anyway. Walk the unit with your landlord, ask them to sign it, and keep your copy. If they will not sign, the dated sheet plus your own photographs is still far better than the argument you would otherwise be having from memory.

Where the record goes next

The checklist is one of a small set of documents that make the end of a tenancy quick instead of painful. The payment side lives in the free rent ledger template, which tells you where the rent actually stood on the last day, and if an agency, a lender or the next landlord asks you to certify that record, the free rent verification form prints it as a signed form. Between them, the condition and the money are covered.

Keep the signed checklist with the lease and the ledger for that unit rather than in the folder for that year, because when it is needed the question is always about one unit and one tenant. Which rental documents to keep covers the rest of the file, and what is a tenancy timeline covers stringing them into the history of the unit.