Condition Reports & Bond Protection

The single most effective thing you can do to protect your bond is document the condition of the property on the day you move in. Using a digital tenant condition report tool Australia like RentWize on day one, with photos attached, gives you a clear baseline record to review at move-out time.

RentWize's digital condition reports are timestamped, geotagged where available, and stored securely onshore to support your bond dispute evidence record or other tenancy documentation.

Why this matters

Bond disputes almost always come down to one question: was that damage there when I moved in? If you have a photo with an EXIF timestamp from move-in day, the answer is obvious. If you don't, it becomes your word against your landlord's — and that's a much harder position to be in at tribunal.

Creating a condition report takes about 15 minutes at move-in. It can save you weeks of stress and potentially your entire bond.

Creating a condition report

To start a new condition report:

1. Open the property from your dashboard.
2. Tap Condition Reports, then New Report.
3. Select whether this is a Move-in or Move-out report.
4. Work through the room list — you can add rooms if the default list doesn't match your property.

Record the author role and, if known, the author name shown in the source. Leave the role as Author not recorded when unknown. These details are supplied by you; they do not verify another party's authorship or agreement. Leave the inspection date blank if it is not recorded in the source.

For each room, you can record:

• The general condition (good, fair, poor)
• Specific notes about items in the room (marks on walls, carpet stains, broken fittings)
• Photos from your Evidence Vault or taken directly in the app

Be specific. "Small chip in kitchen benchtop, left of sink" is far more useful than "kitchen — fair condition."

Attaching photos

Photos are the most important part of a condition report. For every item you note, attach at least one photo showing the condition clearly.

Photos added to a condition report are pulled from your Evidence Vault. Any photo you've already uploaded to the Vault for this property can be linked to a room entry. You can also capture new photos directly from the report screen — they are added to your Vault automatically.

All photos stored in RentWize retain their original EXIF metadata, including the timestamp from your device's camera. This timestamp is included when you export the report, providing independent confirmation of when the photo was taken.

Linking to your property

Condition reports are always linked to a specific property in your RentWize account. If you have more than one property, make sure you're creating the report under the correct one.

You can access all reports for a property at any time from the property detail screen. Reports are stored for the life of your tenancy and beyond — they don't disappear when you archive a property.

At move-out

When you're preparing to leave, create a second condition report and select Move-out. Document the property room by room in the same way you did at move-in.

If a landlord or property manager makes a bond claim you want to dispute, you can open both reports side by side inside RentWize. The comparison shows the state of each room at move-in versus move-out, with dated photos for both. This gives you a clearer record to review if you have to escalate to a tribunal.

If you haven't created a move-in report, create a move-out report anyway — it still establishes the condition at the time you left.

Compare your records

Open Compare condition reports (Free) in Condition Reports or your property's Condition Reports panel. Choose the left and right sources: move-in or move-out with any author, tenant entry, agent / landlord entry, tenant exit, or agent / landlord exit. Select exact records using author details, recorded inspection dates and report IDs. Each side must use different records. Unknown authors remain available under the any-author options. Routine, custom and unclassified legacy entry records are excluded. Only unique identical room labels match automatically. Choose other room matches yourself or leave them unmatched.

Review each side's condition, author details, report-level notes and photo references. Missing records, dates or authors are labelled. The save date does not replace a missing inspection date. Legacy reports may not identify a photo's room or the original author.

Add observations and select findings for export. Annotations are temporary: changing report selections or room matches clears them. Download before leaving. The HTML export includes only selected findings and source references; photos are referenced rather than embedded. Review before sharing, then open the file to print or save as PDF. You can add the reviewed PDF to existing case evidence. Original reports remain unchanged. Basic comparison is free; advanced tribunal assembly remains paid. The comparison makes no liability or wear-and-tear decision.

Create yours now

Don't wait. The best time to create a move-in condition report is the day you receive the keys — before you've moved any furniture in and while the property is in its clearest state to photograph.

Open your property in RentWize and tap New Condition Report to get started.

Importing an original report for manual comparison

Open Import a report for manual comparison (Free) on the condition-report screen. Upload the original PDF or scan, choose entry or exit, and record its author and inspection date when known. The original stays in your private Evidence Vault and counts toward your storage allowance.

Add the rooms or items you want to compare. Record each observation and, where available, its page and exact source passage. Leave missing locations blank; they appear as Unlocated. Review every mapping against the original before saving. This creates a separate immutable snapshot and never overwrites your existing report. To correct a saved mapping, import a new snapshot using the original file.

Select the saved snapshot in the existing comparison. Room/item pairings remain adjustable. The comparison and selected-findings export show the source filename, SHA-256, mapped snapshot reference, page and passage. The hash identifies the stored bytes; it does not verify authorship, agreement, legal suitability or the truth of an observation. Open the original separately to review photos or unreadable pages; no observation or photo is inferred from missing content.

Manual import does not send the report to an extraction provider. Automated extraction is not enabled by this flow. Originals and mapped passages follow the tenancy's existing retention and account privacy controls. Reports belonging to a purged tenancy are removed when retention expires.