Move In Inspection Checklist: The States That Require One

Michigan wants the warning printed in 12-point boldface at the top of page one, and it wants the tenant handed two blank copies, not one. Massachusetts has its own warning, also in bold, that runs to seven sentences and has to appear word for word. Washington goes further than either: collect a deposit without providing a written move-in checklist and the statute makes you liable to the tenant for the amount of the deposit, with no exception written in for the condition of the unit.

So the condition report is not only good practice. In roughly a dozen states it is a statutory document, with a delivery deadline, a list of items it has to name, a correction window for the tenant, and a consequence for skipping it. The consequence ranges from almost nothing to the whole deposit.

This guide covers two things: which states write the report into law and what each one demands, and how to build a report that survives a dispute in a state that demands nothing at all. I read each statute linked below at the legislature's own site, or at a named republisher where noted, on 15 October 2026. I am not a lawyer. Treat the summary as a map to the section, and read the section.

If what you need is the line between wear and damage, that lives in Wear and Tear vs Damage: Room by Room. This page is about the record that decides that argument before it starts.

What a statute can demand of a condition report

Read a dozen of these laws side by side and they turn out to regulate the same five things, in different combinations.

Timing. Some states tie the report to the deposit itself. Georgia and Kentucky require the list to be presented before the tenant hands over the deposit. Others count days from move-in: five in Kansas and Virginia, and in Massachusetts ten days after commencement or on receipt of the deposit, whichever is later.

Contents. Washington names walls, wall paint and wallpaper, carpets and other flooring, furniture and appliances. Michigan's list is longer: carpeting, draperies, appliances, windows, furniture, walls, closets, shelves, paint, doors, plumbing fixtures and electrical fixtures. Montana wants a statement that the unit has never been let before, if that is true.

Required wording. Michigan and Massachusetts both prescribe notice text and type size. A handsome form downloaded from a property-management site will almost never carry either state's exact paragraph.

Signatures and copies. Washington requires both parties to sign and date it, gives the tenant a copy, and entitles the tenant to one free replacement copy on request. Kansas wants duplicate copies signed by both sides. Georgia and Kentucky make the signed list conclusive evidence of its accuracy, except as to latent defects.

The tenant's window. Several states give the tenant a fixed number of days to correct or add to your version. What happens when that window closes is where the states diverge most.

The states, side by side

Twelve states, all checked against the statute text on 15 October 2026. This is not every state with a rule. California, for one, now requires photographs at the start and end of a tenancy under Civil Code § 1950.5, covered in the wear-and-tear guide linked above. If your state is missing, the last section explains how to check it in a few minutes.

The Georgia text was read at FindLaw's republication of the code, because the state's official code site blocks automated access. The Kentucky section was read in the Legislative Research Commission's PDF of KRS 383.580 as mirrored by Justia, because the commission's own statute pages did not load for me.

Four grades of consequence

The "if you skip it" column is what a two-unit owner should actually sort by. Most of the twelve fall into four groups; Maryland and New Hampshire regulate notice rather than consequence, and New York needs its own heading.

Grade one: the deposit is gone

Washington is the bluntest. Subsection (2) says no deposit may be collected unless there is a written rental agreement and a written checklist or statement, provided at commencement, describing "the condition and cleanliness of or existing damages to the premises." Subsection (5) then says a landlord who collects a deposit without providing the checklist "is liable to the tenant for the amount of the deposit," with court costs and reasonable attorneys' fees to the prevailing party. The tenant can have destroyed the kitchen and the sentence still applies.

Kentucky's subsection (4) reads: "No landlord shall be entitled to retain any portion of a security deposit if the security deposit was not deposited in a separate account as required by subsection (1) of this section and if the initial and final damage listings required by subsections (2) and (3) of this section are not provided." Read literally, that "and" joins two failures, which would mean a landlord who kept the separate account but skipped the listings is not caught by this sentence at all. Whether a Kentucky court reads it as both or either is a question for a Kentucky lawyer, and nobody holding one deposit should want to be the test case. That is why Kentucky sits in this group only conditionally.

The Kentucky rule has a geographic catch. It sits inside the state's Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, and KRS 383.500 lets cities, counties and urban-county governments adopt that Act, which "shall be adopted in their entirety and without amendment." Where your local government has not adopted it, this section may not govern your unit. Your county clerk or a local tenant-landlord office can tell you which side of the line you are on.

Grade two: the burden of proof moves

Montana does not take the deposit away. It takes away the easy way of keeping it. Under MCA 70-25-206(3), a landlord who fails to give a separate written statement of present condition "is barred from recovering any sum for damage to or cleaning of the leasehold premises" unless they can establish "by clear and convincing evidence" that the damage happened during this tenancy and was caused by this tenant or their family, licensees or invitees. Clear and convincing is a higher bar than the more-likely-than-not standard of an ordinary small claims case. Photographs with dates may get you there. Your memory will not.

Grade three: one side's version wins by default

Virginia lets the paperwork decide. Your report, delivered within five days, "shall be deemed correct unless the tenant objects to it in writing within five days after receipt of the report." Section 55.1-1214(B) also lets a landlord adopt a written policy under which the tenant prepares the report instead, or both prepare it jointly and sign. Fail to send a report and there is nothing for silence to make correct.

Massachusetts uses the same mechanism pointed at the tenant. Its mandatory notice ends with the warning that if the tenant does not return the list in time, "a court may later view your failure to return the list as your agreement that the list is complete and correct." Note what is not in Massachusetts' statute: subsection (6), which lists the failures that forfeit a landlord's right to keep any part of the deposit, names the separate account, the 30-day itemized list, conflicting lease clauses, transfer on sale and late return. The statement of condition is not on that list. But it is a precondition elsewhere. § 15B(1)(b)(iii) only permits a security deposit equal to the first month's rent where the deposit is held as subsection (3) requires and the tenant is given the statement of condition as subsection (2) requires. The introductory paragraph of (1)(b) was amended effective 1 August 2025 so that it binds the lessor's agent as well as the lessor; the statement-of-condition condition was left as it was.

Georgia and Kentucky make a signed list "conclusive evidence of the accuracy" of the list, though not of latent defects. A tenant who refuses to sign must state in writing which items they dissent from, and sign that.

Grade four: no penalty in the text

Michigan's § 554.608 and Arizona's § 33-1321(C) both set the duty without a penalty sentence of their own. Kansas is the clearest case: it requires a joint inventory within five days of occupancy and then says nothing about what happens if you skip it. The revisor's annotation under K.S.A. 58-2548 cites Buettner v. Unruh, 7 Kan. App. 2d 359 (1982), for the point that the "absence of inventory does not preclude evidence of damages." That means you are allowed to try to prove damage without the inventory. It does not mean you will succeed. Without a move-in baseline, the tenant only has to say the stain was already there.

Outside the four grades: New York

New York fits none of the four, because its penalty attaches to what the inspection records rather than to skipping it. The landlord must offer the inspection; if the tenant asks for it, both sides sign a written agreement before occupancy. Then comes the line that turns a careful inspection into a cost: "the landlord may not retain any amount of the deposit or advance due to any condition, defect, or damage noted in such agreement." So the agreement protects the tenant from being charged for what was already there, and paragraph (g) makes anyone who violates the subdivision liable for actual damages, and a willful violator for punitive damages of up to twice the deposit. Massachusetts has a quieter version of the same rule: § 15B(4) bars deducting for any damage listed in the statement of condition or in a tenant's list you signed, unless you repaired it and can prove new damage.

Georgia's ten-unit line, which most summaries leave out

For a reader with one or two units, the most important sentence in Georgia's deposit law is not in § 44-7-33. It is in § 44-7-36, which says that §§ 44-7-31, 44-7-32, 44-7-33 and 44-7-35 "shall not apply to rental units which are owned by a natural person if such natural person, his or her spouse, and his or her minor children collectively own ten or fewer rental units; provided, however, that this exemption does not apply to units for which management, including rent collection, is performed by third persons, natural or otherwise, for a fee."

Three things in that sentence matter.

• It counts the household. Your units, your spouse's and your minor children's are added together.
• It applies to a natural person. The text does not extend it to units owned some other way. Whether a given ownership structure qualifies is a question for a Georgia lawyer, not this page.
• It ends the moment someone is paid to manage. Hire a manager for a fee, including someone who only collects rent, and the move-in list rules apply to that unit.

Cite it as § 44-7-36. The next section, § 44-7-37, is a different rule about service members with change-of-station orders, and FindLaw marks its copy of both as current as of 28 March 2024, so check the date on whatever version you read. Being exempt from the statute is also not the same as being safe in court. A Georgia small claims judge still needs evidence of what the unit looked like when the tenant moved in.

Building a report that survives a dispute anywhere

The statutes above set a minimum. The report that actually wins is built the same way in every state. It works best as a single document used twice.

Use one form for both ends. Michigan requires the commencement checklist to be "identical to the form used for the termination inventory checklist." Copy that rule even where it is not the law. A form with numbered lines, a move-in column and a move-out column lets anyone read the condition of line 14 at both dates in one glance.

Go room by room, then item by item. Use the longer list. Michigan's twelve item types plus Washington's cleanliness requirement cover nearly everything a two-unit owner will ever deduct for. Add the things that generate disputes in practice: window screens, blinds, smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, light fixtures, cabinet and appliance interiors, the shower or tub surround, the yard if the lease makes it the tenant's job, and the number of keys and remotes handed over.

Write condition in measurable terms. "Good" means nothing in front of a judge. "Carpet, bedroom 2: one 3-inch faded patch near closet door, no stains, installed 2022" means something. Montana asks for a "clear and concise statement" of the condition; a measurement is the clearest version of that. Record install or purchase years wherever you know them. You will need them for the depreciation arithmetic later.

Tie each photograph to a line number. A folder of 140 untitled phone pictures is weak evidence, because nobody can say which wall is which. Put the line number in the frame on a sticky note or card, shoot a wide view of each room before the close-ups, and keep the original files, because they carry the capture date in their metadata. None of the twelve sections above puts a number on photographs. Aim for coverage instead: if a line is on the form, a picture should show it.

Let the tenant add lines. Massachusetts and Georgia both build in a tenant's separate list or written dissent. Leave space for it on the form and sign whatever the tenant adds, even if you disagree. A disagreement written down on day three is cheap. The same disagreement first raised at move-out costs real money.

Put the deadline on the paper. If your state gives the tenant five, seven or fifteen days, print the date by which the form must come back. Michigan's mandatory notice states its seven-day window in words; printing the actual calendar date is one step further, and it removes the argument about when possession began.

Prove delivery. Two signatures and dates on the form, a copy to the tenant, and a record of how and when that copy went: email with the PDF attached, or a signed receipt. Maryland and New Hampshire hinge rights on what the tenant was told at the deposit receipt, so keep that receipt with the checklist.

Carry the exact notice text where required. If your unit is in Michigan or Massachusetts, copy the statutory paragraph from the linked section into the top of your form, at the stated type size. Do not paraphrase it.

The move-out half of the same document

A move-in report is only half of the evidence. The other half is the same form, filled in on the day possession comes back, under rules several states also prescribe.

Arizona requires written notification at move in that the tenant may be present at the move-out inspection, and on request you must tell them when it will happen. Maryland's deposit receipt has to tell the tenant they can attend the final inspection if they notify you by certified mail at least 15 days before moving, and the landlord must inspect within 5 days before or after the stated moving date. Georgia, above the exemption, gives you three business days after vacancy to inspect and compile the final list with estimated dollar values. New York requires you, within a reasonable time after either side gives notice to end the tenancy (unless the tenant gives less than two weeks' notice), to tell the tenant in writing that they can ask for a pre-move-out inspection. If they ask, it happens no earlier than two weeks and no later than one week before the end of the tenancy, with at least forty-eight hours' written notice, and the tenant gets a chance to fix what you list.

Whatever your state, do the move-out walk with the move-in form in hand. Mark each line "same," "changed" (with a measurement), or "missing." The changed lines are your possible deductions, and they become the itemized statement covered in Security Deposit Itemized List: 14 to 45 Days. Lines that never made it onto the move-in form are the ones you will struggle to charge for.

Checking your own state in a few minutes

If your state is not in the table, it may still have a rule, sometimes as a regulation rather than a statute, or in a city ordinance.

1. Find the deposit section first. Most condition-report rules sit next to the deposit cap and the return deadline. The state-by-state links in Security Deposit Laws by State: Caps and Interest will get you to the right chapter.
2. Search that chapter for five terms: "checklist," "inventory," "statement of condition," "existing damage," and "move-in." States use all five, and a search on only one will miss the others.
3. Read the penalty subsection, not just the duty. The duty is often one sentence. What matters to your deposit is the sentence that says what happens when it is missing, or the silence where that sentence would be.
4. Check for an exemption. Georgia's ten-unit line is the clearest example, but some states exempt owner-occupied buildings or short tenancies. Read the applicability section of the chapter.
5. Look for a local ordinance. Larger cities sometimes add their own move-in requirements. Double-check on your city's code portal or with the local housing office.

Then keep everything for as long as a claim could follow. Massachusetts writes its own floor: § 15B(2)(d) requires a lessor to keep a record of each deposit with a description of damage, repairs, dates, costs and receipts, including copies of any statement of condition given to a tenant, for two years from the end of the tenancy. That is a sensible file to keep anywhere: the signed form, the photographs with original dates, proof of delivery, and the tenant's additions, stored together and named by unit and date.