Published 14 July 2026
Most make-ready delays don’t come from the work. They come from finding out about the work too late. A property vacates, the exit inspection flags eleven items, and by the time quotes come back and trades are booked, two weeks of vacancy have gone that the owner is paying for.
This is the sequence we use, ordered by what actually holds up a new lease rather than what’s most visible.
1. Walk it within 48 hours of vacancy
The single highest-leverage thing you can do. Every day between vacancy and the first proper inspection is a day you can’t recover, and problems found in week two cost the same to fix as problems found on day one — they just cost more in vacancy.
Look specifically for the things that are invisible in an occupied property: what was behind the furniture, what’s under the sink, what the previous tenant’s belongings were covering.
2. Separate the list into three buckets
Not all items are equal, and treating them as one list is why make-ready blows out.
Gating items — things that legally or practically stop a property being leased again. Safety issues, anything affecting habitability, smoke alarms, locks, water ingress. These get done regardless of what the owner thinks about the cost.
Value items — things that measurably affect the achievable rent or the time to let. Presentation of the kitchen and bathroom, the state of the garden and the entry, paint in high-visibility areas. These are worth arguing for.
Deferred items — real but non-urgent. A mark on a wall in a back bedroom, a slightly sticking window. Note them, price them, and let the owner decide. Bundling these into the “urgent” list is how you lose credibility on the items that genuinely are.
3. Get one scope, not four quotes
The instinct is to get competitive quotes on each item. For large works, correct. For a make-ready list of ten small items, it’s counterproductive — four trades means four mobilisation charges, four bookings to coordinate, and four chances for a delay.
A single itemised scope covering the whole list is almost always cheaper in total and considerably faster. What matters is that the scope is itemised, so the owner can still remove lines rather than approving a lump sum they can’t interrogate.
4. Do the exterior first, not last
Exterior work — the garden, the entry, the driveway, the front of the house — is usually treated as the finishing touch. It should be first, because it’s what the listing photos show and what prospective tenants see before they get through the door.
It’s also the work least likely to be disrupted by other trades, so doing it early costs nothing in sequencing.
5. Photograph everything before and after
This is the part most people skip and later wish they hadn’t. A photo record of the make-ready does three things: it settles bond disputes, it justifies the spend to the owner without a conversation, and it establishes the property’s condition at the start of the new tenancy.
If your contractor doesn’t supply this as standard, ask for it. If they won’t, that tells you something.
6. Book the photographer after the work, not around it
Obvious, and yet. Listing photos taken mid-make-ready are the single most common cause of a property that “shows badly” despite the work being done properly.
The checklist itself
Exterior
- Lawn cut, edges done, clippings removed
- Garden beds cleared and weeded, hedges shaped
- Driveway, paths and entry washed
- Gutters cleared — and photographed
- Fencing and gates checked: latches, alignment, loose palings
- External lighting operational
- Bin area tidy and screened
Interior — gating
- Smoke alarms tested and compliant
- All locks and window latches functional, keys accounted for
- Water: no leaks, drainage clear, hot water operational
- Any water ingress or damp investigated properly rather than painted over
- Electrical faults referred to a licensed electrician
Interior — presentation
- Walls patched and touched up in high-visibility areas
- Marks, scuffs and adhesive residue removed
- Kitchen and bathroom detail-cleaned, seals and grout addressed
- Window tracks, flyscreens and blinds
- Door hardware: handles, stops, catches, alignment
- Floor coverings cleaned or repaired
Before handover
- Full photo record complete
- Deferred items documented and priced for the owner
- Anything requiring a licensed trade clearly identified and referred
What we’d add
The items that most often get missed are the ones that don’t look like maintenance: the gate that doesn’t latch properly, the flyscreen with a tear, the light fitting with a dead globe. Individually trivial. Collectively, they’re what makes a prospective tenant feel the property hasn’t been cared for — and that’s a feeling that shows up as a longer vacancy, not as a complaint you can respond to.
If you’d like a scope against your own exit report, send it through — we work from whatever format your system produces and come back itemised within 24 hours.