For room renters and lodgers
Your room is your evidence perimeter
Renting one room in someone else's home means shared kitchens, shared blame and, very often, a deposit no scheme is protecting. A dated record of what you found is the only thing that reliably comes back to help you.
What actually goes wrong
The three ways this costs people money
No scheme, no adjudicator
Lodger deposits usually sit outside the protection schemes. If your landlord keeps some of it, there is no free service to appeal to — only what you can show.
Shared damage, single bill
The hallway carpet, the kitchen worktop, the bathroom seal. Damage in shared spaces gets charged to whoever is easiest to charge.
Nothing in writing
Room lets are often informal: no inventory, no check-in, a text message instead of a contract. Everything is a memory unless you record it.
How Scout helps
What you get, in order of usefulness
A room-first shot list
Every wall, the floor edges, the window frame, the mattress and any furniture that came with the room. Scout names each shot so nothing gets skipped.
Shared spaces on the record
The kitchen, bathroom and hallway documented as you found them — so a later mark has a dated before-photo to argue with.
Tamper-evident from the moment you save
Every photo gets a SHA-256 fingerprint, the capture time and the device it came from. Change one pixel and the fingerprint no longer matches.
A timeline of every message
Log the texts, emails and phone calls about repairs as they happen. A dated note written in January is worth far more than a memory in July.
Notice-aware reminders
Rolling arrangements end quickly. Once you log your notice, Scout makes sure the move-out photos happen before the last chaotic week.
A letter that works without a scheme
No adjudicator does not mean no recourse. Scout drafts a formal, evidenced request for the return of your deposit, and names the next step if it is ignored.
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.
Day one
Your room in full: every wall, floor edges, window, and any furniture you were given. Then the shared spaces.
One week in
Snagging window. The things you only notice once you have lived there — a broken blind, a door that will not lock.
Anything that happens
Log it the day it happens: the housemate's spill in the hallway, the boiler fault, the message you sent about it.
Every three months
A short interim check on your room, so wear is dated rather than disputed.
When you give notice
Scout picks up your notice date and works backwards, so the move-out photos happen before the final week.
Ten days after you leave
If your deposit has not moved, Scout drafts a short formal letter with your evidence behind it.
Questions
Questions people in your position ask
- My landlord lives here. Is my deposit protected?
- If you are a lodger in your landlord's own home, your deposit usually does not have to be placed in one of the government-approved schemes. There is often no free adjudication service to appeal to, which means the only independent record of the room's condition is the one you make. That is the whole reason this path exists.
- How much of the shared space should I photograph?
- Enough to show what you found: the kitchen worktops and oven, the bathroom, the hallway floor and any shared furniture. You are not taking responsibility for those rooms by photographing them — you are recording that the marks in them predate you.
- Someone else broke something. How do I prove it was not me?
- By having a dated photo of the shared space from before it happened, and by logging the incident when it happens. An interim entry written the same week, with a photo attached, is far stronger than an explanation given three months later.
- I never signed anything. Does that make this harder?
- It makes documentation more important. Without a written agreement or an inventory, the tenancy is whatever the two of you can show. Your dated photographs, your rent payment record and your logged messages become the file.
- Can I keep this private from my landlord?
- Your file is yours and nobody else can see it. Most people do send the move-in report though — a polite email with a dated PDF on day two sets a professional tone and makes a surprise deduction much less likely later.
Record the room you walked into
Your first report is free, covers your room and the shared spaces, and takes about twenty minutes.
Document my room free