The complete house viewing checklist (2025)
A house viewing usually lasts 20 minutes. By the time you are back in the car you have already forgotten which room had the radiators making the noise. This checklist is built to be used during the viewing, on your phone, in the order you would actually walk round a house.
Before you arrive
- Look up the property on the council’s planning portal — search the postcode and look at recent applications and decisions on neighbouring properties.
- Check the EPC rating (energy performance certificate). Anything below D will cost real money to heat or improve.
- Drop a pin on Google Street View and look at the road, the parking situation and the neighbouring houses.
- Charge your phone. Many of the things you want to record (photos, voice notes, videos of taps running) eat battery fast.
- Open SeenHouse — or a notes app — and have it ready before you knock on the door.
Outside the property
- Roof condition: missing tiles, slipped tiles, sagging ridge line, moss colonisation.
- Chimney stack: pointing, leaning, signs of past repair.
- Gutters and downpipes: cracks, plant growth, staining on the wall below (a sign of long-term overflow).
- Brickwork: cracks (especially diagonal cracks at corners or above windows), spalling, recent re-pointing in patches.
- Window frames: rot in timber, blown double-glazing units (look for misting between the panes).
- Garden: drainage in low spots, condition of fences (and who owns each one — ask), tree positions relative to the building.
- Outbuildings: condition of the roof and electrics if any; ask if anything was built without planning permission.
- Parking: how many spaces, is it on a permit, is the dropped kerb actually theirs?
Hallway, stairs and landing
- Smell. Damp has a very particular musty note; it is much harder to mask than the agent’s plug-in air fresheners suggest.
- Look at the corners where ceiling meets wall — staining and yellowing usually means a leak above.
- Tap a sample of the walls. Plasterboard sounds hollow; plaster on lath sounds dull. Damp plaster crumbles slightly.
- Check the meter cupboard: is it fuse-board era (1970s and earlier) or a modern consumer unit with RCDs?
Kitchen
- Open every cupboard. Look at the back panels for water staining and mould around the sink and any plumbed-in appliances.
- Run the cold tap, then the hot. Hot water should arrive within a minute. Anything longer and you may have a long pipe run or a tired immersion.
- Check the boiler: make, model, last service sticker, age. A modern combi over 12 years old is on borrowed time.
- Open the back door (assuming the kitchen leads outside). Test the lock with the key, look at the threshold for evidence of water ingress.
- Look at the worktops where they meet the wall — silicone gone black is a maintenance signal, not a deal-breaker.
Living spaces
- Stand in the doorway, then take a single panoramic video. You will use it later for layout and natural light.
- Check the position of radiators relative to where you would put furniture.
- Look at the floor by all the external walls — cold spots and lifted skirting can hint at moisture.
- Ask about the wifi router location and the line speed (or ask for a recent Ofcom checker screenshot).
Bedrooms
- Open the windows. Listen. Are you on a flight path, near a school, next to a pub garden?
- Check the wardrobes are actually built-in or bolted in (and confirm what is staying).
- Measure roughly with arm-spans if you have not brought a tape: enough room for a king bed plus side tables?
- Look up at the loft hatch. Is it sealed? Insulated? When was the loft last opened?
Bathroom
- Run the shower, taps and flush the loo together. Watch the water pressure drop.
- Look at the grout and silicone — discoloured grout is cosmetic, but soft or missing silicone around the bath is a leak risk.
- Check the extractor fan actually starts when the light goes on. Stagnant bathroom moisture is the source of half the “mystery” mould stories.
Loft and outbuildings
- Ask to see the loft. Look for daylight through the roof, condition of the felt, depth of insulation, any signs of past leaks.
- Look for evidence of pests — droppings, chewed insulation, displaced loft boards.
Photograph everything
By the third house this week, things start to blur. Take wide shots of every room from at least two corners. Photograph the boiler, the consumer unit, the meters and any defects. SeenHouse will store them against the property automatically — we built it because spreadsheets and camera rolls do not cope.
Score before you leave
Before you drive off, give the property a quick rating against the things you actually care about — kitchen, garden, location, parking, layout. Doing it now, while it is fresh, is the single biggest predictor of an honest comparison later. See our guide to comparing houses fairly for a simple weighted scoring framework.