What should a staff accommodation inspection checklist include?

Four things at every inspection: meter readings with a photo of each meter, room-by-room photos, the amenity inventory marked present, missing or broken, and existing damage with a photo and a note. Record them in the same order at move-in and move-out. Then the two records compare line by line.

Who should do the move-in inspection, the housing team or the staff member?

Both. The housing team records the room before the key handover, and the person moving in adds their own check-in in the first days. That second check catches what the team missed and protects them from being charged for damage that was already there.

When should the move-out inspection happen?

Before the person leaves, ideally with them present, so findings can be discussed on the spot. Plan it about two weeks before departure, especially at the end of the season when many people leave in the same weeks.

How do you prove damage was already there at move-in?

With dated photos and notes from the move-in inspection and from the occupant's own check-in. If the damage appears in either record, it is existing damage. It must not be charged to the person moving out.

What counts as normal wear and tear in staff accommodation?

The marks normal use leaves over the stay: light scuffs, floors worn along walking paths, sun-faded curtains, a slightly compressed mattress. Holes, burns, large stains and broken furniture are usually damage. The longer the stay and the older the item, the more wear is normal.

How should damage in shared kitchens and bathrooms be handled?

Inspect each shared facility as its own space, with a starting inspection when it comes into use and regular checks during the season. Do not split damage across everyone by default. If you cannot show who caused it, treat the repair as a running cost of the building.

Does Relyo create the inspections automatically?

Relyo creates the team move-out inspection 15 days before departure, and a starting inspection for new properties and shared facilities. Your team or the occupant starts the move-in inspection. Relyo flags any stay with no move-in inspection after 7 days.

Does Relyo use AI to find damage in inspection photos?

No. Relyo shows move-in and move-out photos side by side, room by room, with the meter differences and the damage recorded at each stage. A person on your team decides what is new, and nobody is charged for damage that was already there.

Can staff do their inspections on their phone in Relyo?

Yes. Occupants complete their check-in, move-in checklist and check-out in the occupant portal, and the housing team uses the operator portal. Both work in the browser on any phone, with nothing to install.

Staff accommodation inspection checklist

The short answerA staff accommodation inspection has four checkpoints per stay: team check-in, occupant check-in, occupant check-out and team check-out. At each one, record meter readings with photos, room-by-room photos, the amenity inventory and existing damage. Inspect before the person leaves, compare with the move-in record room by room, and link only new damage to the stay, never damage that was already there. Relyo, staff housing software for hotels and resorts, creates the move-out inspection, flags stays with no move-in inspection and keeps the evidence with each stay. Repair costs are attributed for reporting only, and Relyo never charges anyone.

What a staff accommodation inspection is for

A staff accommodation inspection is a dated record of a room's condition, meters and contents. You take one when a stay starts and one when it ends.

It answers one question fairly: what changed during this stay, and who is responsible?

It is easy to skip. Arrivals bunch into a few busy days, and the move-out inspection gets lost in the last week of the season.

Without a move-in record, damage found at move-out cannot be dated. The employer either absorbs the cost or blames someone without evidence. In a building you lease, you also cannot show the landlord what was already there.

Both outcomes hurt. The first costs money. The second costs trust with the people you want to rehire.

A good checklist prevents this with four checkpoints per stay.

The four checkpoints of a staff accommodation inspection
Checkpoint	Who does it	When	Why it matters
Team check-in	Housing team	Before the person receives the key	Confirms the room is ready and records its starting condition
Occupant check-in	The person moving in	In the first days after moving in	Lets them flag anything the team missed, so they are never charged for it later
Occupant check-out	The person moving out	Before packing up	Lets them record the room as they leave it
Team check-out	Housing team	Before the person leaves	The final record, compared with the move-in record

Why two records are better than oneIf only the team records the room, the person living there has no say. If only the occupant records it, everything depends on how careful they are. Two records of the same room are hard to dispute, from either side.

What to record at every inspection

Record the same four things, in the same order, at move-in and at move-out. Then the two records compare line by line.

1. Meter readings, with a photo

Photograph each meter so that both the reading and the meter number are legible. Type the reading next to the photo.

Record electricity and water at minimum. Add gas or heating where the unit has its own meter. A photo settles disagreements that a typed number cannot, and the difference between move-in and move-out shows what was actually used.

2. Room-by-room photos

Walk through the unit in a fixed order: entrance, bedroom, bathroom, kitchenette, balcony. Take a wide photo of each room from the doorway.

Then take close-ups of walls, floor, mattress, furniture, windows and anything already marked. A short video works as a quick walk-through. Use the same order and angles at move-out.

3. Amenity inventory

List what should be in the room. Mark each item present, missing or broken. A fixed inventory per room type makes this quick and stops items from going missing between occupants.

4. Existing damage

Note every mark, chip, stain, crack and fault with a photo, a short description and its location. This is the most important part of the move-in record. Anything written here belongs to the room, not to the person moving in.

The move-in checklist

Print it, or use it as the template for a digital one. Tick each item, add a photo, and note anything missing, broken or marked.

Before the key handover (team check-in)

Room cleaned, beds made, mattress protector fitted
Electricity, water and gas or heating meters photographed and read
Wide photo of each room taken from the doorway
Walls, floor, ceiling and windows checked for marks, damp or cracks
Mattress checked on both sides for stains or damage
Air conditioning or heater working, remote present
Lights, sockets, hot water and shower working
Keys or key cards counted and tested
Smoke detector present and working
Existing damage photographed and described

Amenity inventory (adjust per room type)

Mark each item present, missing or broken, with a photo of anything missing or broken
Item	What to check
Bed and mattress	Frame stable, mattress clean on both sides, protector fitted
Pillows, bed linen, towels	Count per bed, clean, no tears or stains
Wardrobe and hangers	Doors and hinges work, hangers counted
Desk, chair, bedside lamp	Stable, undamaged, lamp working
Curtains or blinds	Rails secure, no tears, blackout works
Fridge	Cools, door seal intact, clean inside
Kettle or small kitchen kit	Working, items counted
Air conditioning or heater	Works on all settings, remote present
Bathroom fittings	Taps, shower, toilet flush, mirror, extractor fan
Keys or key cards	Number handed over, all tested

In the first days (occupant check-in)

The person moving in walks the room and adds anything the team missed
They mark each inventory item present, missing or broken
Missing or broken items are raised as repair requests, not left in a note
They confirm the meter readings match what they see

Tell your staff why the check-in mattersThe check-in protects them. Anything they record now cannot be blamed on them later. Say it plainly at the key handover.

The move-out checklist

The move-out inspection repeats the move-in record, in the same order. Every line gets a before and an after.

Occupant check-out

Personal belongings removed and the room left reasonably clean
Each inventory item marked present, missing or broken
Photos of each room, taken in the same order as at move-in
Any damage reported honestly, with a note on what happened

Team check-out

Final meter readings photographed and read
Room-by-room photos from the same angles as at move-in
Inventory counted against the move-in list
Keys or key cards returned and counted
Each finding marked as existing (on the move-in record) or new
New damage described, photographed and given a realistic repair cost
Repairs needed before the next person moves in raised as requests

How to tell new damage from existing damage

Damage is new only if it is missing from the move-in record and goes beyond normal wear for the length of the stay. Everything else belongs to the room. Work through each finding in this order.

Find the same spot in the move-in photos. If the damage is visible there, it is existing damage. Close it.
Check the team's move-in notes and the occupant's own check-in. If either mentions it, it is existing damage, even if the photo is unclear.
If it is new, decide whether it is wear or damage. A season of normal use leaves marks.
If it is damage, record a realistic repair cost, not the price of a brand-new item.
Show the person the before-and-after photos and hear their side before anything is decided.

A rough guide. Length of stay, number of people and the age of each item all change the answer.
Usually normal wear	Usually damage
Light scuffs on walls near the bed or door	Holes, burns or large stains on walls
Floor worn along walking paths	Burns, deep scratches or spills that stained the floor
Curtains faded by sunlight	Torn curtains or broken rails
Loose door handle after months of use	Door or wardrobe pulled off its hinges
Mattress slightly compressed	Mattress soiled, torn or burned

Three things decide what counts as normal wear: how long the stay lasted, how many people lived there, and the age and condition of each item.

Do not charge the price of a new item when the old one was already worn. A carpet that was already several years old is not worth the price of a new carpet.

Never charge for damage that was already thereFind out who caused new damage. If it is not on the move-in record and you cannot show it happened during this stay, it is not this person's cost.

Fairness is also practical. Seasonal staff talk to each other, and one unfair charge can be the reason people do not come back next season. A clear process with photos protects your careful staff as much as your buildings.

Shared facilities: kitchens, bathrooms and laundry rooms

Shared facilities need their own inspections. Damage there cannot be traced through any one room's move-in record.

Treat each shared kitchen, bathroom, laundry room or lounge as its own space, with its own inventory: fridge, cooker, microwave, washing machine, fire blanket, extinguisher, tables and chairs.

Give each one a starting inspection when it first comes into use. Then inspect it on a fixed schedule, for example at the start, middle and end of the season, instead of per stay.

Record who has access to each facility, so you know who uses it
Let staff report problems in shared spaces as they happen, with a photo
Don't split shared damage across everyone by default. If you cannot show who caused it, treat it as a running cost of the building
Track repeat problems per facility. They often point to a worn appliance or a missing rule, not a careless person

When each inspection should happen

Book the move-out inspection before the person leaves, not after. Questions get answered while they are still on site.

Most missed move-out inspections are a scheduling problem. They are planned for the last day, people often leave earlier, and the record ends up being made in an empty room.

Plan each inspection when the room is assigned, not when it is due.

Inspection	When to plan it	When to do it
Team check-in	When the room is assigned	Before the key handover
Occupant check-in	At the key handover	Within the first few days of the stay
Occupant check-out	Two weeks before departure	In the last days before leaving
Team check-out	Two weeks before departure	Before the person leaves, ideally with them present
Shared facilities	At the start of the season	A starting inspection, then on a fixed schedule

Spread move-out inspections over the last weeksDepartures cluster in the last weeks of the season. If you house dozens of people, spread move-out inspections across those weeks, not all on the final weekend.

How Relyo runs move-in and move-out inspections

Relyo is staff housing software for hotels and resorts. It runs this checklist for every stay, on any phone, without paper.

Four checkpoints per stay: team check-in, occupant check-in, occupant check-out, team check-out
Stays without a move-in inspection flagged after 7 days
Team move-out inspection created 15 days before departure
Meter photos, room photos and video, and damage notes, on any phone
Works in the browser, with nothing to install
A move-in checklist for occupants: present, missing or broken
Missing or broken items become tickets automatically
Move-in and move-out photos side by side, with meter differences
New damage kept apart from existing damage
A person on your team decides what is new
New damage linked to the stay, with repair costs attributed for reporting
Never charged for damage that was already there
Repair costs add up per occupant, unit and property
Shared facilities get their own inspections, inventory and a starting inspection
Each inspection records who completed it and when

Operational Signals, Relyo's ranked list of what needs attention, also flags four gaps: a check-out inspection not submitted after someone has left, an occupant still checked in after their departure date, an occupant who moved in 7 or more days ago without a move-in inspection, and a shared facility that has never been inspected.

Repair cost attribution is for reporting. Relyo never charges anyone, and it moves no money.

This checklist is general operational guidance, not legal advice.

Staff accommodation inspection checklist: move-in and move-out