A landlord's move-in checklist for the Nigerian rental market

Handing over keys is a legal and financial event, even when it feels like a courtesy. Here is the checklist serious landlords work through before a tenant moves in, and how an inventory report fits into it.

Before the visit

• Agree the terms in writing. Rent, caution fee, who fixes what, and what counts as fair wear and tear. Ambiguity here becomes a dispute later.
• Record the meter readings yourself: light, water, gas. Screenshot the prepaid meter display. Units are money; make the handover exact.
• Set out the property's condition baseline. This is the part most landlords skip, and the part that costs the most.

The condition baseline

Walk the property room by room and document:

• Walls and ceilings (stains, cracks, paint condition)
• Floors and tiles
• Doors, windows, locks and keys
• Kitchen and bathroom fittings: taps, water flow, cooker, fridge
• Any furniture you are leaving in the property
• The compound: gate, drainage, generator or inverter, water tanks

A written list helps. Photographs with dates are what make it evidence.

Where the inventory report comes in

A professional inventory report does all of the above in one visit, with photographic quality you could not match on a phone between meetings, and it ends up in a PDF that goes to you and the tenant at the same time.

At move-out, the check-out comparison repeats the exercise against the move-in record. Differences get documented, with dates, photographs and meter numbers, so the caution fee decision takes minutes, not weeks.

After the handover

• File the report somewhere you can find it (ours live in a cloud archive).
• Schedule a mid-term inspection if the tenancy is long. Problems found in month six cost less than problems discovered at move-out.
• Keep every version of the report. Comparisons need originals.

One visit at the start of the tenancy is the cheapest insurance a Nigerian landlord can buy.