How to rent out an apartment: step by step

To rent out an apartment you first settle the ownership and the condition of the home, set a rent you can justify, screen candidates before they ever come to a viewing, sign a written lease, hand the property over against a signed condition report and record every payment. Ten steps, in that order. The order is not everything, though: each step ends in something written down, and a year later those records are the only version of what happened that still exists.

What has to be ready before you publish the listing?

Before the listing you need the title document, written consent from any co-owners, a mortgage contract you have actually read, and a decision on which defects you will repair and which you will disclose.

Ownership comes first. Put the title document, the floor plan and the latest utility and building maintenance bills into one folder. Candidates rarely ask for them. The tenant who later disputes who they are paying does ask, and so does your accountant at the end of the tax year.

When the property has more than one owner, the consent of the others is put in writing before the listing goes up, not after a candidate has already committed. Inherited homes are the typical case: three siblings, one of whom runs the letting, while the other two assume they will be asked before anyone signs. A short written consent naming who manages the letting and on what terms they may negotiate removes a dispute that otherwise surfaces once a tenant already lives there.

If the property is mortgaged, read what the loan contract says about letting. Some contracts require notifying the bank, others limit the term.

Then walk the home with a notebook and write down every defect: the cracked tile in the bathroom, the window that does not shut fully, the scratch on the parquet. For each one decide: repair or disclose. If the defect gets in the way of daily use, repair it, because it will generate calls from the first month. If it is cosmetic and not getting worse, disclose it and carry it into the handover report later. The one thing you must not do is keep quiet about it. A hidden defect discovered after signing costs you either the repair anyway, or the trust of a tenant who now assumes you hide things.

You leave this step with a document folder and a written list of defects. The list is not paperwork. It is the baseline the condition of the property will be measured against when the tenancy ends.

How do you set a rent you can justify?

The rent is set from at least five genuinely comparable listings, adjusted for what your home has and does not have, with a floor below which you do not go.

Comparable means the same neighbourhood, a similar building age and type, a similar floor and roughly the same size. A ground-floor apartment on a noisy boulevard and a fourth-floor apartment on a quiet parallel street are not comparable, even in the same neighbourhood. Collect five, write down what each one includes, and only then look at the numbers. Asking prices are asked, not agreed: what you are reading is other owners' hopes.

Adjust for the differences tenants actually pay for: furnished against unfurnished, the type of heating and what it costs in January, a lift in a building above the third floor, a parking space, the condition of the kitchen and the bathroom.

Then fix two numbers. The asking rent and the floor. The floor exists because of a trade-off most first-time owners get backwards. An extra month of an empty apartment costs a full month's rent, irrecoverably. A rent slightly below the local average costs you the difference every month, but it fills the home and keeps it filled. Holding out for the higher figure is worth it only if you expect it to make up the empty month within the term of the lease.

When a candidate pushes for a discount, give ground on something other than the rent. A longer initial term, a payment date that matches their salary, permission to repaint a room in a colour of their choice, a washing machine you were going to buy anyway. Each of those costs you once. A reduced rent costs you every month until the end of the lease.

You leave this step with a written price sheet: asking rent, floor, and the concessions you are willing to make, in the order you will offer them.

What should the listing say so it screens out the wrong candidates?

A listing screens when it states plainly the terms you will not move on: rent, deposit, term, who pays which bills, furnishing, pets, and what kind of household the home suits.

Every detail left unsaid produces viewings that end in nothing. Leave out the deposit and some of the people who come will find out at the last moment that they cannot raise it. Say nothing about pets and someone will arrive having already promised their child a dog. And unclear bills mean the rent in the reader's head is not the rent you have in mind. A viewing costs you an evening and costs the candidate the same. The job of the listing is to make sure the people who come could actually sign.

Say what kind of household the home suits by describing the property, not the people. A two-room apartment on the sixth floor of a building with no lift suits neither a family with small children nor a tenant who struggles with stairs, and saying so in the listing saves both sides a wasted evening.

The photos show the condition, including the defects you decided in the first step to disclose. The temptation is to shoot from the corner with a wide lens in good light and end up with something larger and newer than the home itself. That photo fills your calendar with viewings that end at the front door. Photograph every room, including the bathroom and the balcony, in ordinary daylight. A candidate who arrives having already seen the cracked tile is a candidate who has already accepted it.

You leave this step with the text of the listing and with a screening question you send by message before agreeing a viewing: how many people will live in the home, from when they want to move in, and for how long.

How do you screen a tenant without collecting more data than you need?

A prospective tenant is screened on what bears on paying the rent and looking after the property: employment and income stability, who will live in the home, and a reference from a previous landlord.

The useful questions are few. Where do you work and for how long. Who will live here besides you. Why are you moving. Is there a previous landlord I can call. The last one weighs more than any document, because the previous landlord watched this person for a year and has no reason to flatter them. Ask specifically, not generally. Not whether they were a good tenant, but whether they paid on time and what condition they left the apartment in.

The screening is proportionate to what is at stake. For a one-year lease on a furnished home, a reference from an employer and one from a previous landlord are proportionate. Asking for six months of bank statements is not, and the candidates you would most want are also the ones most likely to walk away.

Personal data collected while letting falls under GDPR, and the practical rule is minimisation: collect what the decision requires, keep it only as long as you must, and tell the candidate why you are collecting it. The usual lapse is a photographed ID card that stays in a phone for three years. Once the choice is made, the data of the unsuccessful candidates serves no purpose.

You leave this step with a short written note on why you chose this tenant and with consent for everything you kept. The note takes two minutes and matters if the decision is ever challenged.

What should the lease contain?

The lease states the parties and the property, the term, the rent with a payment date and method, the deposit terms, how bills are split, the notice periods, and the rules on repairs and access.

The parties and the property: full names and identifiers, and the exact address with the floor and apartment number. This clause prevents the argument about who is responsible when the person paying is not the person who signed.

The term and what follows it: does it renew automatically, does it become open-ended, or does it simply expire. If the lease is silent, what remains after the initial term is a tenancy nobody can define.

The rent, the date and the method of payment. Give a date, not the beginning of the month. Give a method that leaves a trace. Rent paid in cash on an unspecified day is rent that can be proven neither paid nor unpaid.

Bills are split by name: which accounts stay in your name, which the tenant transfers, who pays the building maintenance fee and who pays the electricity for the common parts. The last one is small and is the most common source of small but constant disputes.

Repairs: which are yours and which are the tenant's, written out rather than implied. Also record how the tenant reports a fault and how quickly you respond, because a tenant who cannot reach you about a leak will call a plumber and deduct the invoice from the rent.

Access is settled explicitly: the property is yours and the tenant lives in it, and both facts have consequences. Set a notice period for visits and a rule for emergencies. Turning up unannounced is the fastest way to lose a good tenant.

The annexes: name them in the lease itself. The handover report, the inventory of furnishings and the meter readings are annexes, and a lease that names them individually binds them to itself.

You leave this step with two signed originals, one for each party, with the annexes named in them.

How large a deposit should you take, and what can you withhold from it?

The deposit covers damage beyond ordinary wear and unpaid rent or bills. Its size, what it does not cover, and the procedure for returning it are written into the lease before the tenant transfers it.

Almost every deposit dispute starts from the distinction between damage and wear. Wear is what happens to a home that is lived in normally: paint faded over two years, worn varnish on the parquet in the hallway, a tired tap washer. Damage is what happens to a home that is treated badly: a burnt worktop, a cracked hob, a broken lock, a wall with holes from a bracket you did not agree to. You may withhold for the second category. You may not for the first, and trying to turns an ordinary move-out into a dispute.

Write into the lease whether the deposit may serve as the final month's rent. Most owners assume it may not, and most tenants assume it may. If the lease is silent, the tenant stops paying for the last month and you are left with no cover for the condition of the apartment at exactly the moment you need it.

Set out the return procedure: within what period after the keys come back the deposit is returned, what deductions are allowed, and that every deduction is backed by evidence, for example a dated photo, an invoice or a quote. Issue a written receipt when the deposit arrives.

You leave this step with a deposit clause in the lease and a receipt for the money.

How do you hand the home over so its condition is provable?

The home is handed over against a signed report listing the furnishings and appliances with their condition, dated photos of every room and of every existing defect, and the meter readings entered in the same document and signed by both parties on the day of handover.

The inventory of furnishings is the core. List everything you are leaving: appliances with make and, where visible, serial number; furniture room by room; the number of keys handed over for each lock. Against each item record the condition in plain words. A fridge, working, with a dent at the bottom right of the door. A sofa, clean, with a small tear on the left armrest. An inventory that says only sofa proves a sofa existed, and nothing more.

Photograph on the same day and let the photos carry their date. Every room from two corners, then a close-up of each defect from the original list. This set settles the deposit conversation a year or two later. Right now it takes fifteen minutes.

Enter the readings in the report itself, not on a separate note: electricity, water and heating where it is metered, together with the meter numbers. Photograph each meter display as well. The first bill after handover is where an unrecorded reading turns into an argument about consumption from before the tenant.

Then both parties sign and each takes a copy. An unsigned report is the most common lapse at this step, and it is a complete one. A detailed inventory the tenant has not signed proves only what you wrote by yourself.

For a closer look, the inventory of furnishings and the handover report are covered in a separate guide.

You leave this step with a signed report, a set of photos and recorded readings, gathered into one file.

What gets settled in the first month of the tenancy?

In the first month the utility accounts are transferred or re-registered, one payment method that leaves a trace is confirmed, and you check that the first payment arrived on the agreed date and record it.

The accounts: decide which move into the tenant's name and which stay in yours. An account in the tenant's name makes them directly liable to the supplier, which is cleaner, but you cannot see whether the bills are being paid, so ask for periodic confirmation that they are settled. An account left in your name keeps you liable, which means you learn about non-payment through your own bill rather than through a disconnection.

The payment: a bank transfer with the address of the home or the tenant's name in the reference. Cash is the usual arrangement in the first month and the usual mistake of the first month. A payment nobody can trace supports neither a claim for late rent nor a tax return.

Check that the first payment arrived on the agreed date, not two days later. If it is late in the first month, respond in the first month, in writing, with a neutral sentence asking whether the payment date suits them. Almost every lasting non-payment problem began with a first month that was allowed to slide, because a tenant quickly learns what you tolerate.

You leave this step with a payment log, kept from the first transfer, showing the date, the amount and the reference.

What do you owe on rental income?

Rental income received by an individual has to be declared, and the amount due depends on the rent received during the year and on whether the tenant is an individual or a company, because the two are treated differently.

Which records the return rests on is clear. The lease establishes the agreed rent and the term. The payment log establishes what actually came in and when, and the two do not always match, since a tenant who paid late in December has moved income between two years. Bank statements support both. An owner who has kept them from the first month fills in the return from documents that already exist.

If your tenant is a company, ask during negotiation how it will treat the payments, because its accounting obligations affect your position. Settle it before signing.

You leave this step with the lease, the payment log and the bank statements identified as the set the return will rest on.

Which documents do you keep until the end of the tenancy, and where?

You keep the lease and its annexes, the handover report with the photos, the meter readings, the payment log, the confirmations on bills and all written correspondence in one place, for the whole term of the tenancy and for some time after it ends.

Scattered documents fail you at exactly the moment you need them. The report is in a drawer, the photos are on a phone that was replaced long ago, the payment confirmations are in an email account you no longer use, and the tenant is standing in the hallway asking for the deposit. None of it was lost through carelessness. It was lost because it was never gathered in one place.

Correspondence counts. When the tenant reports a fault, keep the message. When you agree they may repaint the bedroom, send a short message afterwards confirming what you agreed, even if the agreement was reached by phone.

At the end of the tenancy the file does the work. You walk the home with the report and the photos, compare item by item, separate wear from damage and settle the deposit against evidence rather than impressions. A tenant shown a dated photo of the worktop as it was on move-in day rarely argues about what happened to it.

Keeping all of it in one place is a practical question rather than a question of discipline, and the platform for owners solves exactly that problem: the documents for each property are stored together, so they are in one place rather than six.