Viewing a flat: a checklist for the half hour you spend inside

Take three things with you: a phone with a full battery, a phone charger and a small torch. The charger is for testing sockets — you plug it into one socket in each room and watch that it charges. The torch is for looking behind cupboards, into the ventilation shafts and under the pipes in the bathroom; damp usually starts in exactly those places you cannot see.

Choose your time as well. Go in daylight if you can — artificial light hides the state of the walls and the ceiling. If the flat is a serious candidate, a second visit in the evening is worth the journey: whether the stairwell is lit, what goes on in the courtyard, whether you hear the neighbours — those questions only answer themselves after dark.

Water comes first, because it is the most expensive and the most disruptive thing to put right. Go into the bathroom and open the tap fully: what is the pressure, is the flow steady, how many seconds until the hot water arrives. Then open the kitchen tap at the same time — how far the pressure falls with both running matters especially on upper floors. Look at the colour too: a yellowish first few seconds means old pipework.

Testing the drains is easy: fill the basin and let it out. If the water goes slowly or gurgles back, that is the sign of a standing problem. Flush the lavatory, wait for the cistern to fill and check that it is not running. Take the torch under the pipes: a dried stain, a white salt trace or rust tells you there is a slow leak.

The water heater is a question of its own. If the flat has a gas water heater — a kolonka, as they are known here — light it and ask when it was last serviced. Be careful with anything involving gas appliances: a suspicious smell, or an old unit that has never been maintained, is more than an inconvenience.

Ask to see the fuse board. It is not an odd request: one look at it tells you a great deal about the state of the flat. New breakers, tidy wiring and labelled circuits are a good sign. A tangle of wires, old-fashioned fuses and joints wrapped in insulating tape will become your problem later.

Test the sockets with your charger — at least one in every room. While you are at it, count them: in older buildings one socket to a room is normal, and in daily life that turns into a forest of extension leads. Press the light switches too, and check that there are bulbs in the fittings and that they work.

The most important question is capacity. In older buildings it is common for the breaker to trip when an air conditioner, a washing machine and an electric heater run at once. Ask the landlord directly: can those three run together, and when was the wiring last renewed. The tone of the answer often tells you more than the answer itself.

Heating is a subject of its own in Uzbekistan, because it changes the winter kommunal — the utility bills — completely. Establish whether the building is on central heating, heated by a gas boiler, or reliant on electric heaters, even if you are viewing in July. Then ask the second question straight away: what the bills came to for this flat last winter. It is not an awkward thing to ask; it is your own future expense.

Open and close the windows. Do they shut without sticking, are the seals intact, does a draught come through the frames. Old wooden windows hold heat badly and you feel it in the first cold week. Look carefully at the wall beside the window and the sill below it: dark speckled patches, bubbled paint or lifting wallpaper are signs of damp.

You can smell damp as well. If you notice a musty smell in the first seconds inside, do not ignore it — especially on the ground floor and on the top floor. A freshly painted patch of ceiling, or one room with new wallpaper, is often a covered-up leak. Do not be shy about asking: has water come through here, and when was it repaired.

Check the mobile signal there and then, on your own phone, in each room and particularly in the bedroom and the bathroom. In thick-walled buildings and in semi-basement flats the signal can disappear where you least expect it. Settle the internet question on the same visit: which provider reaches the building, is the cable already in or are you bringing your own, and what speed is available.

Step out into the stairwell and stand there for a minute. Is it kept clean, does the light work, does the entrance door lock, does the lift run and what state is it in. Then go out into the courtyard: is there somewhere to park, where are the bins, what is the playground like. None of this ever appears in a listing, and you live with all of it every day.

If you can, exchange a word with a neighbour. Asking someone on the stairs whether the water is good in this building and whether it gets cold in winter is completely normal, and it usually produces the most honest answer you will get. At the same time you find out whether the person showing you the flat really is from this building.

If you like the flat, raise the paperwork before you leave. Ask to see the ownership document and the landlord’s passport, and check that the name is the same on both. If a relative or an acquaintance is showing the flat on the owner’s behalf, they should hold a power of attorney. That check takes a minute and stops most fraud schemes right there in the hallway.

Ask the money questions at the same time: what the price includes, who pays the utilities, how much the zakladka — the security deposit — is and in what circumstances it comes back in full, how many months the contract runs and whether the rent can change inside that term. Write the answers into the note on your phone: after three viewings in one day, the terms blur together by the evening.

And the last rule, which is never broken: on the day of the viewing, without seeing the ownership document and without a signed contract, you give nobody money. However convincing the offer to "hold it for you" sounds, the answer is the same.