For house and flat renters
A whole property, recorded properly, in one afternoon
Most deposit deductions come down to cleaning, damage and redecoration — and to a check-in inventory written by someone else. Document the property yourself on day one and the argument at the end has evidence in it.
What actually goes wrong
The three ways this costs people money
The inventory that under-records everything
Agent check-ins are frequently text-only and skip the small marks. Gaps in their inventory are the most common cause of a disputed deduction.
Cleaning charges at the end
Cleaning is cited in over half of all deposit disputes. A dated photo of the oven and the grout on day one is what makes a professional-clean charge defensible or not.
Wear and tear called damage
A hallway carpet flattens over two years. Without a start-of-tenancy record, ordinary ageing can be presented as something you caused.
How Scout helps
What you get, in order of usefulness
A shot list built from real disputes
Per room, Scout names the shots that decide arguments: oven interior, extractor filter, bathroom grout and seals, skirting, carpet edges, window frames, meters.
Move-out comparison, pair by pair
At the end of the tenancy Scout shows your move-in photo beside the live camera, same angle, and stores the two together as a dated pair.
Tamper-evident evidence
Each photo carries a SHA-256 fingerprint, the capture time and the device details, recorded at the moment it was saved.
Scout Vault for the paperwork
Tenancy agreement, gas safety certificate, EPC, EICR and the deposit protection certificate, in one place with expiry dates watched.
An adjudicator-facing report
Cover page, contents, room sections, a comparison section and a verification appendix — with a public verification link anyone can check.
Scout Letters for a proposed deduction
Scout drafts a structured response citing your own photographs room by room, formatted for scheme adjudicators rather than as a generic complaint.
Your year
What Scout reminds you about, and when
You do not have to remember any of this. Scout keys every prompt to your own tenancy dates.
Key day, before you unpack
Every room, the meters, the white goods and the outside space. Empty rooms photograph far better than furnished ones.
Within a few days
Send the dated report to your landlord or agent, and compare it against their check-in inventory.
One week in
Snagging window for everything you noticed once you started living there.
Every three months
An interim check that keeps the file current and dates normal wear as normal wear.
Two months before the end
Move-out mode: your move-in photo beside today's, same angle, both dated.
The day before the keys go back
Final checklist — meter readings, every room as it stands, the keys, and your forwarding address in writing.
Questions
Questions people in your position ask
- The agent already did a check-in inventory. Do I need my own?
- Yes. An agent's inventory is written by the other side, is often text-only and typically under-records small marks and cleanliness. Your own dated photo report closes those gaps, and if the two documents disagree, having both is far better than having only theirs.
- What counts as fair wear and tear rather than damage?
- Wear that follows from ordinary living over the length of your tenancy — carpet flattening in a hallway, small scuffs on paintwork, appliances ageing. Damage is something broken, burnt, stained or removed. Adjudicators separate the two by comparing dated evidence from the start and the end of the tenancy, which is exactly the pairing your report produces.
- How long does an adjudication take?
- Deposit scheme adjudications commonly take four to eight weeks from the point the dispute is raised, and are decided on documents alone. There is no hearing, so whatever you can attach is your entire case.
- How many photos should a three-bedroom house have?
- Around six per room is a solid file, so roughly sixty to eighty for a three-bed including the hallway, garden and meters. Scout tracks it per room and tells you which rooms are still thin rather than leaving you to guess.
- Do I need to send the report to my landlord?
- You do not have to, but it helps. Emailing a dated PDF within the first few days puts your version of the property's condition on record early, which matters more than the file format ever will.
An afternoon now, or an argument you cannot win later
Your first full report is free, with unlimited rooms and photos. Scout will walk you through the property room by room.
Document my property free