Just Moved In
Your own dated record of a rented home. Walk each room on the day you move in, photograph everything, photograph the meters, and send your landlord a dated record the same day: a schedule of condition in the UK, a move-in condition report in the US. Do the same walk on the day you leave, and the app prints the first day beside the last. Everything stays on your phone, with a backup copy in your own iCloud, until you send it somewhere yourself.
Before you start
Nothing. The app opens with the usual rooms already there: hall, living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, bathroom, and General photos for anything that is not a room, like the front of the building or the bins. Add a room from the Rooms page; rename or remove one from the menu at the top of its page. A room you never photograph is simply left out of the record. When you have a minute, open Tenancy (called Lease in the United States) and enter the address, your names, your landlord or letting agent and their email address. They are printed at the head of the record.
Photograph a room
Tap Photograph a room and choose the room you are standing in. The camera opens. Press the round button for each photograph: it is kept the moment it is taken, and the camera stays open for the next one. When you have covered the room, tap Room is finished. There is nothing to type and nothing to choose.
Every photograph carries the date and time it was taken. They are set by the phone at that moment and cannot be edited in the app, which is what makes the record worth having.
Adding a note
Most photographs need no words. For the few that do, open the room, tap the photograph, and type a note such as "burn was here when we moved in". It prints under that picture in the record.
How clean is this room today?
On each room's page, one tap records how clean it was. Cleaning is what deposits are argued over more than anything else, and it is recorded separately from marks and damage.
Meters and keys
Open Meters and tap Photograph beside each meter. One photograph of the dial is all it takes: the figures and the date are in the picture, and nothing is typed. On Keys, count the keys you were given and record whether the smoke and carbon monoxide alarms worked when you pressed their test buttons. In England the landlord must make sure they work on the day your tenancy begins.
Your tenancy agreement
On the Tenancy page, tap Photograph under The agreement and photograph each page; the camera stays open for the next page until you tap Finished. The pages stay with you, backed up with everything else, so you can find the agreement again in a year. They are not part of the record sent to the landlord.
The record
The record shows what is still missing, the printed pages as they will look, and two buttons. Send opens an email already addressed to your landlord or agent, with the PDF attached and the covering words written; read it and press Send. Print opens the iPhone's share sheet, where you can print the record or save the PDF. Send the record within seven days of moving in and keep the sent email: it proves the day they received it.
Moving out
On your last day, open Move out and tap Start. In each room tap Photograph again. Each photograph from the first day appears in the corner of the camera, so you can take the new one from the same place. The move-out record prints the first day beside the last, with both dates, the meters photographed on both days, and the keys handed back. Your move-in record is never changed by any of this.
What is free and what is paid
Your first ten photographs are free (rooms, meters and agreement pages all count), with everything working: the rooms, the meters, the keys, the whole printed record, sending it, and the backup. An eleventh photograph needs the unlock. It is one purchase, for every home you ever rent, with Family Sharing, and there is no subscription. Nothing you have already recorded is ever locked, unlocked or not. Restore purchase is on the unlock screen and in Settings.
United Kingdom or United States
The app takes its country from your iPhone and you can change it in Settings, under Where you rent. It sets the words (deposit and letting agent, or security deposit and property manager), the way dates are written, the units on the meters, the paper the record prints on (A4 or US Letter) and which Deposit guide you see.
Backup
The app backs up automatically to your own iCloud, free, and offers to bring the record back when it is opened on a new phone with nothing in it. On Backup you can see when it was last saved, switch it off, or restore an earlier copy.
Questions
- Will a deposit scheme accept my own photographs? The schemes say a tenant may submit their own evidence, that the deposit stays the tenant's money until the landlord proves a claim, and that photographs are most useful when they are dated and sit inside a written report. That is what the app makes. It cannot promise the outcome of a dispute.
- My landlord gave me their own inventory. Read it, and send your comments in writing within the time it gives, usually seven days. Send your own record as well: the two together are stronger than either.
- Can I change a photograph's date? No, and that is deliberate.
- Can I add a photograph I took with the iPhone's camera? Not in this version. Photographs are taken in the app so that their date and time come from the moment of the photograph.
- I am renting somewhere else. The record works anywhere. The UK Deposit guide gives the rules of England and Wales, with a line each on Scotland and Northern Ireland. The US guide explains that your state sets the rules, with three examples from state law.
Contact
Anything at all, including bugs and suggestions: conor@conorhannah.com.