What is a move-in inspection? The room by room record of a rental's condition on the day the keys change hands, signed by both sides, and the thing that decides the deposit two years later.
A move-in inspection is a written record of the condition of a rental at the start of a tenancy, made with the tenant present and signed by both. In Nevada it is not optional paperwork: NRS 118A.200 requires the rental agreement to include, among other things, a signed record of the inventory and condition of the premises. The checklist stapled to a Nevada lease is that record, and a lease handed over without one is missing something the statute asks for.
Do it before the furniture arrives. Go room by room and write what is there rather than ticking a box: walls, floors, blinds, windows, doors and locks, every appliance with a note that it was run, the water heater, the air conditioning, the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, the garage door, the irrigation and the landscaping, and the meter readings. Photograph or film every room and every defect, keep the file with its dates intact, and give the tenant a copy signed by both sides on the day. Existing chips, stains and scuffs belong on the list. The ones nobody wrote down on day one are exactly the ones argued about on the last day.
It decides the deposit because a deposit may only go to what NRS 118A.240 describes: unpaid rent, damage beyond normal wear, and cleaning back to the condition the unit started in. Normal wear is not chargeable. Faded paint, worn carpet in traffic paths and small nail holes are the owner's cost of doing business; a hole in a wall and a missing appliance are not, and the line between the two is drawn by the record of what the place looked like at the start. Nevada then gives the landlord 30 days after the tenancy ends to return the deposit or deliver an itemized statement of what was kept, under NRS 118A.242. Walk the unit again at move-out against the same list, with the tenant there if possible, and the itemization more or less writes itself.
A worked example
A $1,850 unit with an $1,850 deposit. The move-in record notes a chipped bathroom tile, a scuffed bedroom door and a stained burner drip pan, with 14 dated photographs taken the day the keys changed hands. Twenty months later the landlord withholds $340: $250 for a hole in the living room drywall and $90 for carpet cleaning. The tile and the door are on the day-one list, so neither is charged, and the itemized statement and the remaining $1,510 go out inside the 30 days NRS 118A.242 allows.
A Nevada lease with the condition record in it
Questions people ask
Is a move-in inspection required in Nevada?
In practice yes. NRS 118A.200 requires the rental agreement to include a signed record of the inventory and condition of the premises, so the checklist is part of the lease rather than an extra. Doing it properly is what makes it useful; a blank one signed at the door gives neither side anything.
What counts as normal wear and tear?
The deterioration a home gets from ordinary living: faded paint, carpet worn in the traffic paths, small nail holes, loose grout. Damage is beyond that, a hole punched in a wall, a burned countertop, a missing appliance. A deposit may go to damage and to cleaning back to the move-in condition, not to wear.