The first person through a new build is rarely the tenant. Site managers, trades, cleaners and viewing parties have all been in and out before the keys are handed over. The property has a history of work rather than occupation. What it does not have is a record.
That matters more than it first appears. Every later comparison in a tenancy rests on its starting point. At the end of the tenancy the question is not whether the hallway wall carries a mark, but whether it carried one when the tenant moved in. In an older property a previous inventory may help fill a gap. In a new build there is nothing behind you, so the first record you make is the only one there is.
A property with no past
A new build arrives with two contradictory qualities. Everything is new, and yet very little of it has been examined properly. Kitchens are fitted at speed, decoration is finished in a hurry before viewings, and the last trades on site often work around the cleaners rather than before them.
Some of what you see in the first weeks is simply the building settling into use. Hairline cracks appear where plasterboard sheets meet. Sealant that looked crisp in a show home develops a slight gap. A door that closed sweetly in April catches on the carpet in June. None of these observations need a cause attached. Recording what is visible, where it is and when it was seen is the job in hand. Explaining why it happened belongs to somebody else.
Before the furniture arrives
If you have any choice about timing, record the property empty. A furnished room hides more than it shows: the corner behind a wardrobe, the wall behind a headboard, the floor beneath a bed. Once a tenant's belongings are in, those areas are effectively unrecorded until they come out again.
The best moment is shortly after the developer's own clean and before the first set of keys goes to a tenant. Failing that, record as early in the tenancy as possible, and say plainly in the report that the property was occupied when it was seen.
What to record, room by room
Decoration and sealant
Walls and ceilings, the finish, any scuffs, filled areas or touched in patches, and the fine shrinkage cracks that so often appear along joints. Then the sealant: the bead around a bath, shower tray, basin, sink and the joint along a worktop, and the line of grout between tiles. Photograph wide enough to show where you are, then close enough to show what you mean.
Floors
Carpet type and colour room by room, joining strips, thresholds, vinyl, tiles, engineered timber. Note joins, any lifting edge, and where floor coverings change. New flooring shows marks early and shows them clearly, so the original state is worth a photograph rather than a sentence.
The kitchen and its paperwork
Unit doors and drawer fronts, alignment, worktop, upstands, splashback, sink, tap and extractor. Every appliance deserves its make, model and serial number where these are visible, because the tenant may never see the original documents again. If manuals are present, record that they were seen and where they are kept. Protection film on stainless steel or glass should be noted as found.
Bathrooms
Sanitaryware, shower screens and their seals, the extractor, the towel rail, tiling, mirror and cabinet. Bathroom sealant causes more end of tenancy conversation than almost anything else in a new home, which makes the state of it at the start worth recording properly.
Windows, doors and fittings
Window handles, restrictors, trickle vents, keys and glazing, with sills inside and out. Internal doors, ironmongery and thresholds. Smoke and heat alarms, carbon monoxide alarms where fitted, and what was visible when they were tested. Meter readings belong here too, with photographs wherever the meter is accessible.
Outside
Turf, planting, fencing, patio, paths, drainage, bin store, outside tap, garage or parking space. A developer's landscaping can mature considerably within a single tenancy, so the first record should be clear about what was actually there.
Protective film deserves its own line
New appliances, and sometimes windows or shower screens, arrive wrapped. Film left in place can hide a scratch beneath it, and film left in sunlight can become awkward to remove. Record where it is present, whether it is intact, and which surfaces it covers. The film will not be there at the end of the tenancy, so the surface underneath deserves its own photograph once it comes off.
The snagging list is a different job
Developers work to a snagging process, and a well run site will keep its own list of items to put right before or shortly after handover. That process belongs to the developer and the buyer. An inventory is not a snagging survey, and a clerk is not a building inspector or a surveyor. What the inventory does is record visible condition at the start of the tenancy, dated and photographed, in a document the tenant can comment on. Where work is later carried out, the change should be noted so the record does not go on describing a state that no longer exists.
The handover pack is not the inventory
Landlords and new owners usually receive a pack from the developer. It tends to include appliance manuals, warranty information, certificates for the services, contact details for reporting defects and sometimes a schedule of finishes. The developer produces it for the buyer, and it describes the building.
An inventory is produced for the tenancy. It describes condition on a given date, room by room, with photographs and the tenant's comments alongside. Different author, different purpose, different reader. Keep both. Where a manual or warranty document is left in the property, the inventory can record that it was seen and where it lives, which is useful when a boiler question arises three years later.
What the tenant should do with it
Read it properly, and read it promptly. Comments are most useful when they are specific and attached to a room or an item. A general note that the property was not clean is far harder to weigh later than a note that the sealant at the bath corner was split on the day of the inventory. Nobody is served by leaving it until the first month's rent has gone out and the memory of that first walk through has faded.
Where the record earns its keep
A new build tenancy often runs from a bright, freshly finished property to something more ordinary a few years later. That distance is exactly the sort of thing an end of tenancy conversation turns on. A dated starting record does not decide any of it, and no report guarantees a particular outcome. What it does is give both sides something concrete to compare, in a property that would otherwise have no history at all.