turnover-checklist

---
name: turnover-checklist
description: Builds a timed, room-by-room changeover checklist for a short let, with the safety checks that must happen every single turnover and the photo set that settles a damage dispute. Use when writing or fixing the clean between a 10am checkout and a 3pm check-in.
---

# The clean that survives a 10am checkout and a 3pm check-in

You give this the property (rooms, beds, bathrooms, appliances, whether there is a hot tub or a log burner), your checkout and check-in times, who does the clean and what you pay them, and the last few things a guest complained about on arrival. You get back a minute-by-minute checklist in the order the rooms must actually be done, the safety checks that are not cleaning and cannot be skipped, a par list for every consumable, a fixed photo set, and a one-page handover record the cleaner signs. It is built so that the person doing it has never seen your property before.

## What it does

1. **Start from the clock, not from the rooms.** A 10:00 checkout and a 15:00 check-in is 300 minutes, and the last 20 of those belong to the walk-through, not to cleaning. So the working window is 280 minutes, and every task on the list gets a number of minutes against it that adds up to less than that. If it does not add up, the answer is a second pair of hands or a later check-in time, decided now, in writing, rather than discovered at half past two with the beds unmade. Write the two real times at the top of the sheet. Write the window in minutes beside them. Every version of the sheet carries the property address and the date it was last changed.

2. **Do the damage and left-property sweep first, before anything is touched.** Ten minutes, every room, in a fixed order, camera in hand. Photograph anything broken, stained, missing or moved, with the timestamp on. After the clean starts you have destroyed the evidence, and a claim made that afternoon against a guest who checked out at ten will be decided on whether there is a photograph. The same sweep collects left property into one labelled bag with the booking reference on it, because "we found a phone charger" three weeks later is not a finding, it is a shrug.

3. **Strip the beds and start the first wash inside the first fifteen minutes.** Laundry is the only task on the sheet with a fixed machine time you cannot compress, so it is the only one whose start time is non-negotiable. Everything else queues behind it. Count what comes off against what goes back on and record the count, because linen goes missing one sheet at a time and nobody notices until there is no set for a Saturday changeover.

4. **Run the safety checks that are not cleaning, and record each one.** These happen every turnover, not monthly. Press the test button on every smoke alarm and the carbon monoxide alarm and write down that you did. Walk the escape route from each bedroom to the final exit door and confirm it is clear and that the door opens without a key. Confirm the exit key is on its hook if there is one. The GOV.UK fire safety guide for small paying-guest accommodation, which covers "single premises of ground floor, or ground and first floor, providing sleeping accommodation for a maximum of 10 persons, with no more than four bedrooms on the first floor", expects "Mains powered optical smoke alarm/s (with tamper-proof batteries)" and says "all smoke and heat alarms in the premises should be interlinked, so that, when any alarm device detects fire, all smoke and heat alarms give an audible alarm simultaneously". A failed test is not a cleaning task, it is a stop: the property does not receive a guest until it is fixed.

5. **Flush the water through before the guest arrives, and keep the record.** Run every tap, the shower and any outside tap for a few minutes. This matters most after a void. HSE guidance to landlords on legionella lists control measures including "Flushing out the system prior to letting the property", "Setting the temperature of the hot water cylinder (calorifier) to ensure water is stored at 60°C", and, for vacant properties, that "Outlets on hot and cold water systems should be used at least once a week to maintain water flow". It also says to "Ensure cold water tanks have a tight-fitting lid". The checklist therefore carries a flush line for every outlet by name, and a separate weekly line for weeks with no booking, because an empty February is exactly when the risk builds and exactly when nobody goes in.

6. **Clean in one fixed order, top to bottom, dry to wet, and never backwards.** Bedrooms before bathrooms, bathrooms before the kitchen, floors last, and the room nearest the front door last of all so you are not walking back through it. Each task gets its own line with the minutes against it and one observable result, in the shape the Anthropic `runbook` skill uses for operational procedures: what to do, what should happen, and what to do if it does not. "Clean the bathroom" is not a task. "Descale the shower screen with the blue bottle, 6 minutes, result: no white marks visible from the doorway" is a task, and it can be done by somebody new at seven in the morning.

7. **Restock to a written par level and count it, do not eyeball it.** Every consumable gets a number: loo rolls per bathroom, bin bags, dishwasher tablets, tea, coffee, milk, salt, washing-up liquid, hand soap, spare light bulbs, spare batteries for the alarm if it takes them. The cleaner counts what is there, tops up to par, and writes the shortfall on the sheet. The shortfall list is the shopping list, and it is also the only way you ever find out that the £3 of coffee you budget for is actually £9 because the last four guests took it home.

8. **Take the same twelve photographs, in the same order, every single turnover.** Front door and key safe, hallway, each bedroom from the doorway, each bathroom from the doorway, kitchen worktop, sitting room from the corner, the meter readings, and the bin store. Same angles, same order, timestamped. Two jobs: they prove the state the property was handed over in, and when you compare this week's kitchen photo with the one from six weeks ago you see the wear that nobody reports because nobody notices it happening.

9. **Close with a handover record the cleaner signs, and a short list of things that are not their job.** Time in, time out, who cleaned, linen counts, consumables replaced, safety checks passed or failed, damage found with photo references, and anything that needs a trade. Then the certificate line: the date of the last gas safety check and the date of the last electrical inspection. HSE says that "In hotels and B&Bs, you must arrange an annual gas safety check for any gas appliances serving guest accommodation", that the record must show "a description of and the location of each appliance or flue checked; the name, registration number and signature of the individual carrying out the check; the date on which the appliance or flue was checked; the address of the property; the name and address of the landlord (or their agent); any safety-related defect identified and any remedial action taken", and that "You have to keep records for at least two years". Whether that duty applies to a particular self-catering property is a question for the owner's adviser, and the checklist prints the dates so that the question cannot be forgotten rather than answering it.

10. **Test the sheet on somebody who has never been in the building.** Hand it to a person who does not know the property and watch. Every place they stop, ask a question, or guess is a defect in the sheet, and it gets fixed the same day. The `runbook` skill puts it in one line: "Have someone unfamiliar with the process follow it. Fix where they get stuck." A checklist that only works for the person who wrote it is not a checklist, it is a memory aid, and it fails on the one morning that person is ill.

## Then it checks

1. Every task line carries a number of minutes, and the minutes for the whole sheet total less than the working window computed in step 1, with the walk-through time excluded.
2. Every task line states one observable result that a stranger could confirm or fail, and no line reads "clean", "tidy", "check" or "as usual" on its own.
3. The safety block exists as its own section, names every smoke alarm and carbon monoxide alarm by location, and carries a pass or fail box for each rather than a single tick for the group.
4. Every water outlet in the property appears by name on the flush line, and the sheet carries a separate instruction for weeks with no booking.
5. Every consumable has a numeric par level and a counted figure, and the sheet produces a shortfall list rather than a general note to buy more.
6. The handover record carries the gas safety check date and the electrical inspection date, and flags any that is missing or more than twelve months old rather than leaving the box blank.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is.
- Never let a failed safety check be recorded as a cleaning defect. A dead smoke alarm and a smeared mirror do not belong in the same list, because a list that mixes them will eventually have the alarm ticked off by somebody in a hurry.
- Never shorten the sheet by grouping rooms. "All bathrooms" is how the downstairs one gets missed on the changeover where the cleaner was covering for somebody else.
- Never move the photo set to the end. Photographs taken after the clean prove the clean and prove nothing about the guest, which is the wrong way round for the only dispute that costs real money.
- This output is a working document prepared for the owner's fire risk assessor, gas engineer and insurer to check before it is used. It reproduces published guidance and the owner's own arrangements; it is not a fire risk assessment, and the GOV.UK guide is explicit that the responsible person "must carry out a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment of your premises and to record your findings".

## Built from
- Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, "Making your small paying guest accommodation safe from fire (accessible)", https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/making-your-small-paying-guest-accommodation-safe-from-fire/making-your-small-paying-guest-accommodation-safe-from-fire-accessible, updated 20 January 2025, read 14 September 2026: the scope of the guide, the interlinked alarm and mains-powered smoke alarm expectations, and the fire risk assessment duty, which is the whole of step 4 and the final rule.
- Health and Safety Executive, "Legionella and landlords' responsibilities", https://www.hse.gov.uk/legionnaires/legionella-landlords-responsibilities.htm, updated 30 September 2024, read 14 September 2026: the flushing, 60°C storage, weekly outlet use and tank lid measures that became step 5 and check 4.
- Health and Safety Executive, "Gas safety checks: who needs them?", https://www.hse.gov.uk/gas/landlords/safetycheckswho.htm, updated 23 September 2024, read 14 September 2026: the annual check for gas appliances serving guest accommodation, printed on the handover record in step 9.
- Health and Safety Executive, "Gas safety check records and what to keep", https://www.hse.gov.uk/gas/landlords/gassaferecord.htm, updated 23 September 2024, read 14 September 2026: the contents of the record and the two year retention period.
- GOV.UK, "Letting out a self-catering holiday home in England: rules and regulations", https://www.gov.uk/guidance/letting-out-a-self-catering-holiday-home-in-england-rules-and-regulations, published 25 March 2026 and updated 15 May 2026, read 14 September 2026: the set of obligations a self-catering let carries, including carbon monoxide alarms and electrical safety, which is why the safety block sits inside the turnover rather than in an annual diary.
- Anthropic, `runbook` skill, knowledge-work-plugins, https://raw.githubusercontent.com/anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins/main/operations/skills/runbook/SKILL.md, no publication date shown in the file, read 14 September 2026: the task shape used in step 6 and the stranger test in step 10.

# turnover-checklist

## You are given

A folder containing a plain text or CSV description of one UK short let property. Expect some or all of: `property.txt` (address, floors, rooms, bed types, bathrooms, appliances, heating, hot tub, log burner, outside taps, alarm locations), `times.txt` (checkout time, check-in time, cleaner hourly rate), `consumables.csv` (`item, room, par_level, unit`), `issues.txt` (free text list of things guests have complained about on arrival), and optionally `certificates.csv` (`certificate, last_done, next_due`).

## Produce

Write these files into an `output/` folder beside the input.

1. `turnover-tasks.csv` - one row per task, in the exact order the task must be done. Columns: `seq, phase, room, task, minutes, observable_result, if_it_fails, category`. `phase` is one of `sweep`, `laundry`, `safety`, `water`, `clean`, `restock`, `photos`, `walkthrough`. `category` is `cleaning`, `safety` or `record`. Every `safety` row must have a pass or fail result, never a tick.
2. `par-list.csv` - one row per consumable. Columns: `item, room, par_level, unit, counted, shortfall`. Leave `counted` and `shortfall` blank for the cleaner to write in.
3. `photo-order.csv` - exactly 12 rows. Columns: `seq, location, angle_note`.
4. `handover-record.csv` - a single blank record with these column headers and one empty row: `date, property, cleaner_name, time_in, time_out, linen_out_count, linen_in_count, consumables_replaced, smoke_alarms_pass, co_alarm_pass, escape_route_clear, water_flushed, damage_found, photo_refs, needs_a_trade, gas_check_date, electrical_check_date, signature`.
5. `turnover-checklist.html` - a printable A4 sheet, portrait, black and white, rendering `turnover-tasks.csv` with tick boxes, the running minute total in the margin, the working window printed at the top, and the safety section boxed off from the cleaning section.
6. `timing.txt` - the working window in minutes, the sum of task minutes, the headroom or the overrun, and if it overruns, the three longest tasks named.

## Rules

- Never write a task without a number of minutes and one observable result a stranger could confirm.
- Never merge rooms. One row per room, named, even where the task is identical.
- Every named water outlet in `property.txt` gets its own flush row. Every named alarm gets its own test row.
- Never estimate a certificate date. A missing date is written as `UNKNOWN` and listed in `timing.txt`.
- Task minutes are whole numbers. Money in pounds sterling. Dates ISO `YYYY-MM-DD`. British English. No em dash characters. No emoji.

## Return

The absolute paths and row counts of the six files, the working window and the total task minutes, whether it fits, the number of safety rows and the number of cleaning rows, any room or appliance in `property.txt` you could not place in the sequence, and any certificate recorded as `UNKNOWN` or more than twelve months old.