The contactless inspection routine was built in a hurry in 2020. It turned out to be a better way of working, and most of the managers who adopted it never went back.
When lockdowns and social distancing arrived in 2020, inspection protocols changed overnight. Some property managers suspended inspections altogether, at least for a time, despite the obvious drawbacks of going blind on occupied properties. Others devised temporary workarounds, most commonly cumbersome video conference walkthroughs that produced poor documentation.
A third group took a different view. For managers who understood that inspection routines could not simply stop, the requirement was a method that worked during an unusual period and also provided a disruption-proof way to inspect occupied properties once the specific restrictions ended.
Within weeks of the first US lockdowns, zInspector accelerated the release of contactless inspection resources and made them available to all accountholders free during the height of the crisis. Months later they remained available to anyone with an account, free or premium.
Tenant-completed annual, periodic and renewal inspections are performed in the thousands every week. They produce strong documentation, they keep tenants and inspectors safe, and they let the property manager discharge their obligation to the owner without a site visit.
Once you have run inspections this way for a quarter, the argument for going back to scheduling access for routine mid-tenancy checks becomes hard to make. See tenant-completed inspection for the current version of the workflow.
The pandemic-specific urgency has passed, but the method has not. Contactless inspection is now simply the most efficient way to run routine mid-tenancy checks, whatever the circumstances.
Not when the template does the work. Required documentation and property-specific tailoring produce records that are frequently more complete than a rushed in-person visit.
For move in and move out, yes in most cases. Contactless is strongest for the routine mid-tenancy inspections that were always the hardest to schedule.
Run one contactless inspection and compare the record with your last in-person check.
