This is the cheapest document in a tenancy and the one that decides the most money. Twenty minutes at move-in pre-empts the dispute that costs the most and recurs the most often.
Its absence decides deposit disputes against whoever had the duty to make it, which in practice is the landlord or agent, because a tenant cannot be asked to prove that a mark was already there when nobody recorded what was there.
What it records
Every room, in a fixed order. Walls, ceiling, floor, windows, doors, fittings. Specific rather than general: "bedroom 2, scuff approximately 30cm on wall left of window" rather than "some marks".
Everything that comes with the unit, by count and condition: cooker, wardrobes, curtain rails, shelving, water tank, remotes, cards, keys. And the answer to the question that matters at handover, which is whether all of it will still be there on the day.
Meter readings, water and power, photographed with the digits legible, with the meter serial noted. The commonest utility dispute in a block is a reading taken from the neighbouring unit's meter, and the serial is what settles it.
Photographs, one per room minimum, plus every meter and every existing defect, named by room before they leave the phone.
Signatures and the date, both sides, on the same document.
Making it survive
A schedule that lives on one person's phone is not a record. Send both sides the same set in one message, in the same week, so neither can later produce a different version. Store it against the unit, not in a gallery of eleven thousand images.
The move-out half
The schedule is only half a document. The other half is the same walk, in the same order, with the same photographs, on the day the tenant leaves.
Compared side by side, most deposit arguments answer themselves. What is left is the genuine question of fair wear and tear, which is a narrower and much more tractable disagreement than "was that mark there before".
The pre-inspection
Two weeks before move-out, walk the unit with the tenant and name anything that would be a deduction. This is not a courtesy. It is cheaper for both sides: the tenant fixes a cracked cistern lid for a few hundred shillings rather than paying a contractor's call-out as a deduction, and the landlord gets the unit back in better condition and relets it faster.
An agency that runs this as a fixed procedure rather than a diligent improvisation almost never referees a deposit dispute, because there is nothing left to disagree about.
What goes wrong
It is never made. The default, and it costs the landlord far more often than the tenant.
It is a list with no photographs. "Good condition throughout" is not evidence of anything.
Only one side has it. A schedule signed and then kept by the agent, with no copy to the tenant, is a document the tenant has every reason to dispute the contents of.
The meters are missing. The one item that costs nothing to record and causes a disproportionate share of the arguments.