A home can look perfect at the viewing and become difficult the moment something goes wrong.
Almost none of what makes a tenancy easy or exhausting is visible in the flat. It sits in three answers, and all three are available before you sign.
The point is not to distrust the owner. It is to remove the surprises that get expensive after you have moved in.
Who holds the deposit?
The owner, an agent, a relative managing the flat, or a company. It matters, because the person holding the money is the person you will be asking to return it.
A deposit of this size should never be a verbal arrangement. If the answer to any of the five is “we’ll settle that later”, that is the answer.
Who handles repairs?
A dripping tap is one thing. A failed geyser in February, a blocked line under the kitchen or an air-conditioner that dies in April is another. Most disputes we see are not about whether something broke. They are about which category it fell into.
The things that degrade because the home is being lived in. Normally the owner’s, and normally the first thing an exit deduction is argued over. Get the phrase defined, not assumed.
Damage with a cause. Usually yours, fairly, but only where the item was working when you arrived, which is what the inventory is for.
Seepage from the flat above, a common pump, a lift, a water shortfall. Neither yours nor strictly the owner’s, and the one category where a tenant can spend six months being passed between two parties.
Then get the practical answer, which is more useful than the principle:
Who do I actually call when it breaks at 9pm?
A name and a number. If the reply is the owner’s brother in another city, you have learned something worth knowing now rather than in February.
How did the last tenancy end?
You may not get the whole story. Ask anyway. The shape of the answer is informative even when the detail is thin.
A tenant who left early, a deposit that ended in a dispute, or a family that moved because the building had a recurring problem: all of it is useful before you commit, and none of it appears in a listing.
If you can, ask the same question of someone who does not have a tenancy to sign: the guard, the maintenance office, a neighbour on the same floor.
