Inventory and schedule of condition. A printable inventory and schedule of condition — room by room, what is there, what state it is in, and the detail that decides a deposit dispute two years later.

An inventory is written for an adjudicator. Everything about its format follows from that: it will be read by somebody who has never seen the property, against a check-out report, by reference to photographs, to decide whether a mark on a wall was there at the start.

Descriptions beat grades for exactly that reason. 'Carpet — good' is an opinion nobody can test; 'carpet — light wear in doorway, 20mm stain beside radiator, otherwise sound' is a description that can be compared. Adjudicators discount grades and rely on descriptions, which is why the sheet gives room to write.

Testing the alarms in the tenant's presence and recording it is a small item with disproportionate weight. It is a specific obligation in several regimes, it is evidenced by almost nobody, and it costs thirty seconds at check-in.

The tenant's own comments are a column rather than an afterthought. An inventory the tenant has had the opportunity to comment on, and either agreed or annotated, is worth enormously more than one they merely received — and a tenant who disputed something at the start is a tenant who cannot dispute it differently at the end.