Yes. Under Article 27 of the decree of 15 March 2018, a detailed entry inventory of fixtures must be drawn up contradictorily, at shared cost, while the property is empty or during the first month of occupation. It is registered with the lease and is the reference for any damage claim at the end.
The entry inventory of fixtures (etat des lieux d’entree) records the exact condition of the property when the tenant moves in, room by room. In Wallonia it is not optional: Article 27 of the decree of 15 March 2018 requires the parties to draw up a detailed inventory, and the relevant provisions are mandatory (logement.wallonie.be, 2018).
The law also fixes how and when. The inventory must be established contradictorily, meaning both parties take part and agree its content, and at shared cost (frais communs), so neither side alone bears the bill (logement.wallonie.be, 2018). It has to be done either while the premises are unoccupied or during the first month of occupation, and it is registered together with the lease. Where the parties disagree, an expert can be appointed to draw it up.
Its purpose is to create a fixed baseline. At the end of the lease, an exit inventory is compared with the entry inventory, and the difference (beyond normal wear and tear) is what the tenant may owe. Without a proper entry inventory, the tenant is presumed to have received the property in the state it is in when they leave, a presumption that makes damage claims very hard for a landlord to win (logement.wallonie.be, 2018).
The counter-intuitive point is that the entry inventory protects the landlord far more than it inconveniences the tenant. Owners sometimes skip it to save time, then find they cannot prove a single scratch was the tenant’s doing. A thorough, dated, photographed inventory is one of the cheapest and most powerful documents in a Walloon lease. Brussels and Flanders impose their own inventory rules, so the format is not automatically interchangeable across regions.
At a glance
- Mandatory: yes, under Article 27 of the 2018 decree
- Level of detail: detailed, room by room
- Method: contradictory, both parties involved
- Cost: shared between landlord and tenant
- Timing: while empty or within the first month of occupation
- Registration: filed together with the lease
- If parties disagree: an expert can be appointed
- No inventory: tenant presumed to have received the property as it is at exit