Most viewings happen at the best possible time of day, with the lights on and the windows open. You are being shown a photograph of the place rather than the place itself. The good news is that the things which go wrong later are largely visible in advance, if you know where to look.
Run the taps and open the cupboards
Water pressure, how long the hot water takes to arrive, whether the extractor fan works, whether the windows actually close and lock. Each of these takes about two minutes and together they account for a surprising share of tenancy complaints.
Agents rarely object. If one does object, or hurries you along, that is information worth more than the answer would have been.
Look for what the paint is covering
Damp announces itself in ceiling corners, along skirting boards and behind furniture that has been positioned a little too deliberately. A patch of fresh paint in an otherwise tired room is worth asking about directly.
- Check phone signal in every room, and ask which broadband lines reach the building.
- Find the meters and ask how heating is billed. A cheap rent with electric heating often is not cheap.
- Open the windows to see what you are actually next to: a main road, a bin store, an extractor from the unit below.
- Visit once more at a different time of day, ideally an evening or a weekend.
- Ask what the last three repair requests were, and how long each took.
Protect the deposit before you unpack
Deposit disputes are almost always evidence disputes. The tenant who documented the flat on day one wins them, and the tenant who did not usually settles.
Read the clauses nobody reads
Notice periods, deposit deductions, who is responsible for which repairs, and what happens if you need to leave early. These are the clauses that decide what the tenancy costs you, and they are the ones most often skimmed.
Every dispute I have handled came down to something written in the agreement that the tenant had not read, or something about the flat that nobody had photographed.
None of this is difficult. It is just unglamorous, and it happens at the exact moment you are most keen to like the place.