Under the old fixed-term regime, the end of a tenancy was a natural moment to walk into a property. With rolling tenancies, that moment goes away. A tenant can be in residence for three years, five years, longer — with no trigger to inspect unless you build one in.
A planned mid-term inspection is now the single most important window your branch has into the condition of a property. Done well, they catch small problems before they become deposit fights, expensive repairs or possession claims. Done badly, they annoy tenants and produce nothing useful.
Set a cadence and stick to it
Six months is the most common rhythm. Some agencies move to four-monthly on student stock and twelve-monthly on long-running professional lets. Whatever you pick, calendar it in at the start of the tenancy so nothing falls through.
Give proper notice and a clear reason
A casual “we’d like to pop in next week” gets resistance. A formal written notice with a date range, the purpose of the visit and the contact details for rescheduling does not. Tenants are far more accommodating when they understand it is a routine check, not a covert search.
Bring a checklist — and a camera
A good inspection is not a chat in the kitchen. The clerk should walk every room with a structured checklist (safety items, condition items, signs of unauthorised changes) and photograph anything notable. Brief observations beat long narrative notes.
Flag, report, schedule
Everything material goes into the written report. Repairs needed. Compliance items missed. Damage in progress. Mould risk. The point of the visit is not to file a report — it is to generate actions, and the report is just the evidence trail behind them.
Treat the mid-term inspection as a service to the landlord rather than a chore for the tenant, and you will find both sides respect them. Skip them — because the tenancy is rolling and “nothing has changed” — and the problems you discover at check-out will be far more expensive than the visit ever was.
