Tenant moving out? The 15-point turnover checklist before the next one moves in

Do the full walkthrough on handover day itself — with the outgoing tenant still present if you can arrange it, and before any deposit money moves. The 15 points below take about 45 minutes with a phone torch, a phone charger and a roll of tissue, and they catch the faults that otherwise surface two weeks after the new tenant moves in, when a cheap fix has become an urgent one. The list works the same whether you are the owner or the agent handling the handover.

Water and bathrooms (1–6)

Flush every toilet and watch the base for two minutes. A failing base seal shows as a slow dark line creeping along the grout behind the bowl. Almost nobody stands and watches a toilet that long — which is exactly why this gets missed at handovers.
Run every tap and the shower, then wipe under each sink with dry tissue. Tissue wrapped around the bottle trap shows a weep your eye misses. A drip the old tenant lived with for a year is how cabinet bases end up rotten.
Knock your heel on the tiles around the bathroom floor trap. A hollow sound there is the earliest warning the screed and waterproofing are tiring — that patch is always where it goes first, because it is the lowest, wettest point of the floor.
Lift the floor trap grating. In group rentals it is usually matted with hair. Clear it now, or the new tenant’s first message to you will be a flooded bathroom.
Listen to each cistern five minutes after flushing. A faint hiss means the inlet valve no longer closes fully — that is the water bill running 24 hours a day. The parts are cheap; ignoring them is not.
Check the washing machine tap and standpipe. White crust on the connection means it has been seeping, and a perished inlet hose is a flood waiting for a weekend nobody is home.

Electrical (7–9)

Test every socket with a phone charger. Note dead ones, and any socket that grips the plug loosely or shows brown heat marks around the pins.
Run the water heater for five minutes, then press the ELCB test button. It must click off instantly. If it does not trip, the heater stays off until it is checked — no exceptions.
Switch on every light and run each fan through all speeds. Flickering tubes and humming regulators are cheap now and a move-in-week complaint later.

Safety note: beyond swapping a bulb or a starter, none of this is DIY territory. On our jobs, all wiring repairs are carried out with our licensed partner contractor, Suruhanjaya Tenaga compliant, typically RM 80–600 depending on the fault.

Doors, locks and security (10–12)

Change or rekey the front door cylinder. You have no way of knowing how many copies of that key exist after a tenancy. It is a small cost against a serious risk.
Work every internal lockset and hinge. A door that needs a shoulder to close has sagged on its hinges — a ten-minute tightening now, a snapped lockset later.
Check grilles, the gate latch and window handles. Seized louvre levers and stiff padlocks are the kind of thing viewings quietly fail on.

Surfaces and the small stuff (13–15)

Walls: decide wash or repaint honestly. Scuffs and blu-tack marks often wash off washable paint; a full repaint of a typical unit runs RM 1,000–2,500 and makes every viewing photo better.
Silicone and grout in the bathrooms and kitchen. An empty unit is the cheapest moment to strip blackened silicone and regrout — no scheduling around anyone’s showers.
The rattle list: curtain rails, towel bars, cabinet hinges, toilet seats. Collect them into one combined handyman visit instead of five separate call-outs.

What the common findings cost

Finding	Typical cost
Running cistern / worn inlet valve	RM 20–150 parts; plumber visit RM 100–500
Dead socket or tripping circuit	RM 80–600 via licensed partner
Re-silicone + regrout one bathroom	RM 100–300 bundled into a handyman visit
New front door cylinder or lockset	RM 50–200
Full unit repaint	RM 1,000–2,500

Why all this before the deposit is settled

The deposit conversation is only fair while both parties are looking at the same wall. Walk the list with the outgoing tenant, agree on what is damage and what is fair wear and tear, photograph everything, and the discussion stays civil. Do it a week later over WhatsApp and every finding becomes an argument.

If you would rather hand the whole turnover to one team — inspection, repairs, repaint, ready to let — that is what our landlord package covers, with published price ranges so you can sanity-check any quote, including ours.