Rental Property Inspection Checklist for Western North Dakota Landlords

Most inspection checklists you will find online are forms: a grid of rooms and a column of boxes marked good, fair or poor. The form is the easy part. What makes an inspection useful is knowing what each visit is for, checking the same things in the same order every time, and recording them well enough that a photo taken in March can be compared with one taken the previous August.

This checklist is written for single-family houses and small multifamily units in the Williston Basin, where the climate sets the priorities. A worn carpet can wait. A furnace that has not been serviced before the first cold snap cannot.

The three inspections and what each one is for

Each inspection answers a different question, and knowing which one you are doing tells you how much detail to record.

• Move-in. Establishes the baseline. Every room, every appliance and every existing mark, photographed and dated before the tenant's belongings arrive. Everything later is compared against this record, so it deserves the most detail.
• Routine, or mid-tenancy. Catches problems while they are small: a slow drip under a sink, a filter that has not been changed, a window that no longer latches. It is a maintenance visit, not a verdict on how the tenant lives, and it goes better when it is presented that way.
• Move-out. Compares the unit against the move-in record. Without a thorough move-in record, this inspection has nothing to be measured against.

A landlord walkthrough is not the same as a professional home inspection, which is worth commissioning before you buy a rental. A professional inspector looks at structure, roof and systems in more depth than any owner checklist, and the report is part of pricing the purchase. If you are buying from a distance, our guide to buying rental property out of state covers where that fits in the process.

The room-by-room rental property inspection checklist

Work through the unit in the same order every time: outside first, then front to back, then the mechanicals. Consistency is what makes two inspections comparable.

Exterior

• Roof. Missing or lifted shingles and damaged flashing, particularly after a wind event.
• Gutters and downspouts. Attached, clear, and discharging away from the foundation.
• Siding, trim and foundation. Cracks, gaps, and anywhere water or pests could get in.
• Walkways, steps and railings. Heaving concrete, loose treads, and anything that becomes a hazard under ice.
• Exterior doors and garage door. Operation, locks, weatherstripping, and the auto-reverse on an opener.
• Outdoor faucets. Dripping, damaged, or still connected to a hose.

Entry and living areas

• Walls and ceilings. Holes, cracks and stains, especially ceiling stains that point to a leak above.
• Flooring. Condition by material: existing wear on carpet, scratches on hard floors, lifted seams.
• Windows. Operation, locks, screens, cracked panes, and condensation trapped between double panes.
• Doors. Operation, latches and hardware.
• Lights, switches and outlets. Every one tested, with cover plates intact.

Kitchen

• Appliances. Each one run, not just looked at: burners and oven, refrigerator temperature, the dishwasher through a short cycle, the range hood fan.
• Under the sink. Active leaks, old water staining, a soft cabinet floor.
• Faucet and drain. Flow, drips, and how quickly the sink empties.
• Cabinets and counters. Doors, drawers and hinges, plus burns, chips and water damage at the seams.

Bathrooms

• Toilet. Running continuously, rocking at the base, or leaking at the supply line.
• Tub and shower. Caulk and grout condition, soft spots in the surrounding wall, slow drains.
• Exhaust fan. Running, and actually pulling air. A dead bathroom fan through a winter of closed windows is how mildew starts.
• Vanity. Under-sink leaks, as in the kitchen.

Bedrooms

• Walls, flooring, windows and doors. The same checks as the living areas.
• Closets. Doors on their tracks, shelves and rods secure.
• Basement bedroom windows. Open fully and are not blocked by furniture or window wells full of snow.

Utility room and mechanicals

• Furnace or boiler. Filter condition, any error lights or unusual noise, and the date of the last professional service.
• Water heater. Leaks at the base, corrosion on the fittings, and the relief valve discharge pipe in place.
• Main water shutoff. Located, labeled, and turns freely. Anyone who might need it in an emergency should know where it is.
• Electrical panel. Accessible, labeled, and free of scorch marks.
• Sump pump, where there is one. Runs when tested and discharges well away from the house.
• Visible plumbing. Leaks and corrosion, and any line running along an exterior wall or through an unheated space.

Safety devices

• Smoke alarms. Tested on every level and near sleeping areas, with the manufacture date checked against the replacement interval printed on the unit.
• Carbon monoxide alarms. Tested and in date, particularly in any unit with a gas appliance, a fuel-burning furnace or an attached garage.
• Fire extinguisher, if the unit has one. Charged, accessible and in date.

The fall inspection matters most in the Bakken

If you do only one routine inspection a year, do it in September or early October. Almost everything on this list is cheap to deal with before the first hard freeze and expensive after it.

• Furnace service. A professional service and a fresh filter before the heating season. A furnace that fails on a January night is an emergency call-out and, in an occupied unit, a tenant without heat.
• Pipes in cold spaces. Crawl spaces, exterior walls, garages and anywhere a line runs near an unheated area. Check the insulation, and confirm any heat tape actually warms.
• Outdoor faucets. Hoses disconnected, and interior shutoffs closed and drained where the house has them. A hose left attached traps water in the line.
• Weatherstripping and door sweeps. Worn seals are a comfort problem for the tenant and a heating cost for whoever pays the utilities.
• Gutters and roof. Cleared of leaves before the snow arrives, so meltwater has somewhere to go.
• Snow and ice. Settle who clears the walks and driveway before the first storm, and where snow gets piled so it does not melt back against the foundation.
• Alarms before the windows close. Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms tested at the start of the heating season, when the unit is sealed up and fuel-burning appliances run the most.

Vacant units need the same attention and more. A vacant house with the heat turned down and no one checking on it is exactly where a burst pipe goes unnoticed for days. If a unit will sit empty through any part of the winter, someone should be walking through it on a schedule.

If you are comparing property managers, ask what is on their pre-winter walkthrough and when it happens. It is one of the questions in our guide to questions to ask a property management company, and the answer tells you a lot about how a manager thinks about this climate.

How to document an inspection

A checklist is only as good as the record it leaves behind. The move-out comparison may happen two or three years after the move-in record was made, often by someone who was not there for the first one.

• Photograph each room from the doorway, then close up. The wide shot shows context. The close-up shows condition.
• Date everything. Timestamped photos and a date on the written checklist.
• Use the same order and the same form every time. Two inspections done differently cannot be compared.
• Describe, do not just grade. "Two-inch scratch on the kitchen floor beside the dishwasher" is useful a year later. "Fair" is not.
• Get both signatures at move-in and move-out. A condition report the tenant has walked through and signed is far harder to dispute than one they never saw. Give them a copy.
• Store it where you can find it. One folder per unit, per tenancy.

What to do with what you find

An inspection produces a list. Sort it into three groups before deciding anything.

• Fix now. Anything touching safety, water, heat or security: a leak, a dead alarm, a door that will not lock.
• Schedule. Real problems that will not get worse this month: a worn faucet cartridge, a torn screen, a sticking cabinet door.
• Monitor. Things to note and check again next time: a hairline crack, a stain that is not spreading, an older appliance that still works.

At move-out the question changes from what needs repair to what changed since move-in, and that is where the move-in record earns its keep. Some wear is simply what happens to a unit over the years, and some damage is not. Where that line falls for a security deposit is set by your lease and North Dakota's deposit rules, so treat it as a question for those rather than for the checklist. The checklist's job is to make sure you have an accurate record either way.

Routine inspections also feed back into keeping good tenants. A visit that ends with a dripping faucet fixed within the week tells a tenant the unit is looked after, which is part of why they stay. Our post on tenant retention in western North Dakota covers the rest of that picture.

When inspections slip

Each inspection is simple on its own, and together they are easy to let slide. The move-in record gets rushed because a tenant is waiting with a trailer. The mid-tenancy visit gets skipped because nothing seems wrong. The fall check gets pushed into November. For an owner who lives outside the Basin, inspections are also the only direct view of the property they get.

Bakken Property Management inspects at move-in and move-out and on a schedule during the tenancy, for long-term residential and multifamily rentals across western North Dakota. If you would rather hand that routine to someone local, see how property management in Williston works with owners.