What to Check Before Moving Out of an Apartment
Moving day is usually focused on getting boxes and furniture onto the truck, but there is a second job waiting once the rooms are empty. A short set of practical checks, done before you hand over the keys, is what keeps an ordinary move from turning into a disagreement with your landlord or property manager weeks later.
In Canada, the exact requirements vary by province, by lease, and often by building, so no single checklist covers every tenancy. What follows is the common ground: the things worth confirming in almost any apartment before you close the door for the last time. While the movers https://plusonemoving.ca/kitchener/residential-moving/apartment-moving deal with the last of the boxes, you can work through the list below.
One idea is worth holding on to before you start: most move out disagreements come down to evidence, not fairness. A tenant who can show what the unit looked like at handover is in a very different position from one relying on memory.
Each check below takes a few minutes. Resolving a dispute after the fact can take considerably longer.
1. Check the Condition of Every Room
Before the movers pull away, walk the entire apartment one more time and confirm that nothing has been left behind. This sounds obvious, and it is still the single most common thing people get wrong. Once a space is mostly empty, the eye stops registering the few items that remain, and a forgotten box in a storage locker is a genuine nuisance to retrieve after the keys are gone.
Easy Places to Miss
- Closets, cupboards, and drawers: especially high shelves and the back corners of deep cabinets.
- Storage lockers and shared storage areas: often in a different part of the building entirely, and easy to forget on a busy day.
- Balconies and patios: outdoor furniture, planters, and anything tucked against the railing.
- Laundry areas: inside the machines themselves, plus detergent and supplies left on nearby shelving.
- Behind and under large appliances or furniture: items that slipped out of sight months ago and only reappear once the room is clear.
The same walkthrough is your chance to inspect for damage caused during the move itself. If a wall was scratched, a door dented, or the flooring marked while furniture was being carried out, document it on the spot. Raising it immediately, while the crew is still present and the cause is not in question, is far easier than discovering it later and trying to establish when and how it happened.
2. Check Utilities and Appliances
Confirm which utilities are actually yours to disconnect. Depending on the apartment and the lease, that might include electricity, natural gas, internet, or other services, and the answer is not the same in every building.
Do not cancel anything unless the account is in your name. Many apartment buildings include certain utilities in the rent and manage them centrally. Closing an account you do not own, or shutting off a service the building controls, creates a problem that is both avoidable and awkward to undo.
If appliances stay with the unit, leave them in the condition the lease requires. Refrigerators and freezers should be emptied and cleaned, switched off, and left with the doors positioned as instructed, since a sealed door on an unpowered fridge is how units come back smelling of mildew. If you are taking appliances with you, make sure every water, gas, and electrical connection has been disconnected safely rather than simply pulled free.
3. Check Water, Heating, and Other Fixtures
Confirm that every tap is fully closed, including the ones you rarely use, and look underneath the sinks for drips or pooling before you leave. A slow leak in an empty apartment can run unnoticed for days and cause real damage in the meantime.
Do not assume that everything should simply be switched off. If the apartment has individually controlled heating or air conditioning, follow the instructions from your landlord or building management for the move out setting. Some buildings require heating to stay on, particularly in cold weather, to protect the pipes. The lease or the property manager's instruction takes priority over the instinct to shut everything down.
4. Check Keys, Access Devices, and Parking
Gather everything that has to go back, and do it before the last load leaves rather than after. Modern buildings hand out more access hardware than most tenants remember receiving, and replacement charges for a missing fob or remote are rarely trivial.
What Usually Has to Go Back
- Apartment and mailbox keys: including any duplicates you had cut during the tenancy.
- Building entry fobs or access cards: often issued one per occupant.
- Garage remotes and parking permits: including visitor passes held on your account.
- Storage room and locker keys: easily overlooked because they live on a separate ring.
- Elevator or amenity access devices: anything issued by the building rather than the landlord.
If the building has formal moving procedures, confirm those are closed out too. A booked service elevator, a reserved loading bay, or a move out time slot usually has to be released or signed off, and leaving that open can hold up a refundable booking fee or create an administrative loose end. Returning access devices promptly is one of the simplest ways to avoid additional charges.
5. Photograph the Apartment Once It Is Empty
Why the Empty Unit Photos Matter Most
Once the furniture and boxes are gone, photograph every room. Capture the floors, walls, doors, windows, appliances, and any existing marks or wear, including the ones that were there when you moved in. Photographs taken while the unit is completely empty show the condition of the apartment with nothing obscured, which is exactly what a photo taken around furniture cannot do.
Keep the images with your moving and rental records rather than leaving them buried in a camera roll. If a question comes up later about damage or the state of the unit, dated documentation is what settles it quickly, and it tends to settle it in favour of the person who has it.
6. Complete the Final Cleaning and Inspection
Check whether the lease sets out specific cleaning requirements, because the standard varies more than people expect. Remove all trash, clean the surfaces, and make sure nothing is left in private or shared storage. Leaving items behind for disposal is one of the more common reasons a tenant hears about additional charges.
If your landlord or property manager has arranged a move out inspection, attend it if you possibly can. Being present means you hear any concerns raised while you are still able to respond to them, and you can take your own notes on what was discussed. An inspection carried out without you is one you only learn the conclusions of afterwards.
7. Confirm the Final Handover
Before you leave, confirm exactly where and how the keys are to be returned, whether that is to the office, to a specific person, or into a designated drop box. Where it is reasonable to do so, get written confirmation that they were received. A short email acknowledging the handover date costs nothing and closes the tenancy cleanly.
Finally, make sure you have provided a forwarding address wherever one is required, and arrange mail forwarding so that correspondence does not keep arriving at an apartment you no longer have access to. It is a small step at the end of a long day, and it prevents the slow trickle of missed letters that otherwise follows a move for months.
Key takeaway: The move is not finished when the truck is loaded. It is finished when the unit has been walked, documented, cleaned, and formally handed back, with the keys accounted for and the photos saved.
Conclusion: Close the Tenancy, Not Just the Door
None of these checks are complicated, and together they take less than an hour in most apartments. What they buy you is a clean break: no forgotten boxes in a locker you can no longer reach, no argument about a mark on a wall, no charge for a fob that was in a drawer the whole time.
Requirements differ across provinces, leases, and buildings, so treat your own lease and your property manager's instructions as the final word wherever they disagree with a general list.
Walk it, photograph it, hand it back properly. Then the move is actually over.
