As tenants are staying in rented properties for longer, landlords are being warned that they must ensure that everything is in place when the agreement starts of risk hefty costs in the future.

Recent figures from the Association of Residential Lettings Agents (ARLA) shows that tenants are staying put for an average length of 19.3 months, an increase of 17 per cent on the previous recorded length of 16.5 months.

With this in mind ARLA is calling on both landlords and tenants to draw up a comprehensive inventory at the start of each letting agreement so that they both know what is what in the property.

Ian Potter, Operations Manager at ARLA said: "This increase in the length of tenancies will inevitably lead to greater wear and tear in rented accommodation and fewer opportunities for ‘downtime' between tenancies for landlords to make improvements.

“Landlords and tenants alike should remember that disputes over deposit returns can be one of the biggest headaches facing both parties, but these can be easily avoided if a professional inventory is prepared."

The inventory should include the condition of fixtures and fittings as well as the property itself.

ARLA recommended that both landlords and tenants should speak to a professional lettings agent about the best way of putting an inventory together.

There may be a charge when drawing the inventory up and this, as it is for the benefit of both parties, should be paid for equally by the tenant and the landlord.

Other advice given by ARLA is to take pictures of the property’s condition to provide evidence in the event of any dispute and to check utility readings to ensure that there are no issues over the size of bills.

And it seems there are set to be more landlords coming into the market this year as the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) recently confirmed that number of mortgage approvals for buy to let products is on the rise after increasing by 84,000 in 2011.