How Inspections Work

Understand the role of inspections with Caretaker's maintenance system.


Property inspections gather information about the physical condition of the property to help maintain that condition. This includes cosmetic issues like stains or chipped paint as well as symptoms of more serious problems like leaking pipes or mold growth.

Benefits

Unlike analog, paper inspections, Caretaker inspections system was designed to thread together all of the data collected about a property's physical condition over time. Each time someone performs an inspection they see all issues submitted by previous inspectors that remain unresolved. This has two benefits:

  • Ease of use: Since at-risk areas are highlighted, the parts of the property that must be reviewed are reviewed carefully without the inspector having to review laundry lists of items in each room.
  • More data collected: By requiring inspectors to look carefully at specific issues that you're tracking you will be able to collect very granular data - small improvements or deterioration that wouldn't be noticed on their own but serve as important tools for early diagnostics.

Key components

Property inspections are comprised of the steps for completing the inspection and the report that is generated once an inspection has been completed. They're broken down according to the unit's different rooms. Rooms can contain multiple different maintenance or repair issues.

  • Guided inspection: Owners and incoming tenants will be prompted to complete an inspection. Inspections were designed to be done in real-time during a property walk-through, so users are prompted to collect all issues room by room. You'll be notified each time a new one is submitted.
  • Inspection reports: You can see the entire inspection history across your portfolio, but only the most recently completed report is treated as the accurate documentation of the property's physical health. A completed, or locked, inspection contains information that is frozen in time - neither party can go back and make changes to a locked report.
  • Rooms: Since , they're organized by different rooms of the property. Each room gets an image associated with it to prevent future confusion.
  • Issues: Open issues are specific parts of a property that must be reviewed each time an inspection is done to make sure the unit complies with state and federal habitability laws and track components of the home that may be deteriorating.

Who inspects properties?

  1. Tenant-led inspections: Tenants are the ones living in the property and the most efficient way to inspect it and track deterioration is through them.
  2. Owner inspections: You can complete a property inspection for your own units or send a link to someone else requesting that they complete an inspection.
  3. Third-party inspections: You can invite third parties to inspect on a regular basis and on turnovers.
Inspection statusDescriptionPossible actions
OpenedSomeone started inspecting without submitting the reportMultiple reminders are sent
LockedReport submitted
OpenedSomeone started inspecting without submitting the reportMultiple reminders are sent

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