Gardens are an inventory blind spot. They are easy to under-document at check-in and easy to over-charge at check-out, which is the worst possible combination.
The condition at the start
A photographic baseline of the garden — grass length, planted beds, fences, sheds, paths — is the only thing that lets you make a claim later. Without it, the discussion at check-out becomes one person’s memory against another.
What the tenant is responsible for
A standard tenancy agreement usually puts the tenant in charge of keeping the garden “reasonably maintained”. That phrase is doing a lot of work; a couple of explicit examples in the agreement (“keep the lawn mown during the growing season”) heads off a lot of arguments.
The check-out comparison
Same angles, same scope of photos. A garden left as long meadow at check-out can only be charged against a check-in that showed a mown lawn.
A five-minute photo set at the start of the tenancy is the single most cost-effective garden insurance available.
