Everybody moving into a first flat gets given the same list: bin bags, a kettle, a mop. It is not wrong, but it misses the two things that actually determine whether the first month goes smoothly. The first is a handful of checks done before and on the day you get the keys, which decide whether you see your deposit again. The second is the order you buy things in, because a flat furnished in the wrong sequence costs more and takes longer to feel like home.
This is that checklist, in order, from the week before you move to the point where the place actually works. It covers the legal and administrative side in plain terms, then the practical side of furnishing a small British flat, including the measuring that stops you buying a sofa that will not go up the stairs. It is general guidance rather than legal advice; for anything contested, the Citizens Advice housing pages are free and reliable.
Last reviewed August 2026. This is general guidance rather than legal advice. Tenancy rules, deposit caps, council tax discounts and licence fees change, and differ between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland — confirm the current position on GOV.UK or with Citizens Advice. Prices quoted are correct at the time of writing and can change.
Before you get the keys
Check the deposit is protected
In England and Wales, a landlord taking a deposit on an assured shorthold tenancy must protect it in one of the government-approved schemes and give you the prescribed information about it, normally within 30 days of receiving it. The three schemes are the Deposit Protection Service, MyDeposits and the Tenancy Deposit Scheme. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own equivalents.
You can check directly with the scheme that your deposit is registered. Do it, because an unprotected deposit is both a warning about the landlord and something that carries consequences for them.
Also check the amount. Under the Tenant Fees Act 2019 in England, deposits are capped at five weeks' rent where the annual rent is under £50,000. Fees for referencing, inventories and "admin" are prohibited.
Read the tenancy for four specific things
The notice period you have to give. Whether there is a break clause and when it can be used. Who is responsible for which repairs. And what the rules are on decorating, pets and, if relevant, subletting or having someone stay.
Ask for the documents you are entitled to
In England, a landlord should provide a valid gas safety certificate where there is gas, an Energy Performance Certificate, an electrical installation condition report, and the government's How to Rent guide. If they cannot produce these, that tells you something about how the rest of the tenancy will go.
Day one: the twenty minutes that matter most
Do this before you unpack anything. It is the single highest-value use of time in the whole move.
Photograph everything. Every room, every wall, the inside of every cupboard, the state of the carpets, the oven, the bathroom sealant. Close-ups of any existing damage. Photographs with a visible timestamp are what settle deposit disputes at the end of a tenancy, and nobody has ever regretted taking too many.
Read the meters and photograph them. Electricity, gas and water if metered. Send the readings to the supplier the same day. This stops you paying for the previous tenant's usage, which is the most common avoidable cost of moving.
Check the inventory line by line and return it with your own additions and corrections rather than signing it as presented.
Find the essentials. The stopcock, the fuse box and the boiler controls. You want to know where the stopcock is before the day you need it, not during.
Test what you cannot see. Run the hot water. Try every hob ring. Flush everything. Open and close every window. Report anything faulty in writing in the first week, when it is unarguably pre-existing.
The admin nobody warns you about
- Council tax. Register with the local council. If you live alone, you are entitled to a 25% single person discount, which nobody applies automatically. Full-time students are generally exempt but must claim it.
- Utilities. Contact whoever supplies the property, give your readings, then decide whether to switch. Do not switch before you have a first bill on the account.
- Broadband. Order it before you move. Installation lead times of a fortnight or more are normal, and a new line takes longer.
- TV licence. Required for watching live television on any channel and for BBC iPlayer. Check the current fee and rules on the TV Licensing site.
- Contents insurance. The building is the landlord's responsibility; everything you own is not. It is inexpensive and the first flat is exactly when people own too little to insure and lose all of it.
- Register with a GP and a dentist. Both take time and both are easier to do before you need them.
- Get on the electoral roll. Beyond voting, being registered at your address helps your credit file, which matters for phone contracts and future tenancies.
- Redirect your post, or at minimum update your bank, employer and anything financial.
What to buy first, in order
The mistake is buying breadth before depth: a bit of everything, none of it good. Buy in this sequence instead.
1. A bed and a mattress
Before anything else, including a sofa. You will spend more hours here than anywhere else in the flat, and sleeping badly for the first fortnight colours everything about the move.
Spend the money on the mattress rather than the frame. A modest frame with a good mattress beats an impressive frame with a cheap one, every time. If the flat is small, this is also the moment to consider whether the bed can do double duty as storage — see below.
2. Somewhere to sit and eat
A table you can eat at and work at, and something to sit on. In most first flats there is no room for both a dining table and a desk, so buy the one surface that does both. In a small or galley kitchen, a shallow counter-height table works where a dining table cannot: our 360 rotating bar table is 39cm deep and extends to 203cm, which is the shape of that compromise, and it brings six drawers with it.
3. Kitchen basics, and only the basics
One good knife, a chopping board, one large pan, one frying pan, a baking tray, a colander, a wooden spoon, a tin opener, a kettle. Two of each plate, bowl, mug, glass and set of cutlery. That genuinely cooks anything.
Everything else — the mixer, the air fryer, the gadgets — can wait until you know how you actually cook in this particular kitchen. Most people find out they cook differently in a new flat than they expected to.
4. Everything else, slowly
Curtains or blinds, a lamp so you are not living under a single ceiling light, storage, a drying rack, a bin, cleaning things. This is the phase where charity shops and marketplace listings are genuinely better value than new.
Measure before you buy anything large
Three measurements, taken once, prevent the most expensive mistake in moving.
The route in: the narrowest point of the entrance, the stairwell width, the turn on the landing, and the door frames. Flat-pack furniture arrives in long boxes and the box is what has to make the turn. Assemble in the room the item will live in, because a built double bed does not come back out through a standard door.
The room itself: allow at least 60cm of clear floor on any side of a bed you need to walk down, and 70cm if that route also reaches a wardrobe. Remember that upholstered bed frames are typically 10cm to 15cm wider than the mattress they hold, so a 4ft6 double at 135cm is more like 148cm externally.
The awkward bits: radiator positions, which way the door swings, and window sill heights if anything tall is going under one.
Storage-first thinking in a small flat
First flats have less storage than anywhere you have lived, and usually no loft, garage or spare room. The fix is to buy furniture that stores things rather than buying storage furniture, because floor space is the scarce resource.
The bed is the biggest opportunity. A hydraulic or ottoman base turns the dead space under the mattress into roughly the volume of a large wardrobe, which is the difference between a flat that works and a flat with suitcases in the hall. Our 4ft6 velvet double with hydraulic storage is £282.99 and gives up nothing in floor area to do it. In a single room, a 3ft storage bed with drawers at £270.99 does the same job on a smaller footprint.
Then think vertically: shelves above door height, hooks on the backs of doors, and under-sink organisers. And be ruthless about the things you moved but will not use.
The store cupboard that means you can always cook
The point of a store cupboard is that you are never more than twenty minutes from a real meal, which is what stops the first month becoming a takeaway habit. Buy these once, in the largest size you will get through, and the per-portion cost collapses.
Rice, pasta, tinned tomatoes, tinned beans, stock cubes, cooking oil, onions, garlic, salt, black pepper, chilli, curry powder, tea, sugar.
If West African food is what you actually cook, the equivalent list is yam flour, garri, red palm oil and a box of Indomie, all of which keep for months and all of which are priced far better in the 4kg bag or the box of forty than in single packs. Getting these in on the first shop is worth more than any gadget.
What not to buy yet
A sofa, until you have measured the route in and lived with the room for a fortnight.
Anything matching. Buying a coordinated set for a flat you have not lived in yet is how people end up with furniture they do not like in a layout that does not work.
Small appliances, until you know your kitchen. A stand mixer is a genuinely good buy for someone who bakes weekly and a dust collector for everyone else.
Curtains, until you have measured the actual windows rather than guessed.
Frequently asked questions
What should I buy first when moving into an empty flat?
A bed and a mattress, before anything else, and put the money into the mattress rather than the frame. Then one surface that works as both a table and a desk, then a minimal kitchen kit. Everything else can be acquired gradually and more cheaply.
How do I make sure I get my deposit back?
Photograph everything on day one, including inside cupboards and every existing mark, and keep the images with their timestamps. Return the inventory with your own corrections rather than signing it as given. Report faults in writing in the first week. At the end, clean properly and photograph again.
Do I have to pay council tax in my first flat?
Usually yes, unless you are a full-time student, in which case you are generally exempt but must apply. If you live alone you are entitled to a 25% single person discount, which you have to claim — it is not applied automatically.
How much space do I need to leave around furniture?
At least 60cm of clear floor to walk past anything, 70cm if it is also the route to a wardrobe or a doorway, and 90cm at the foot of a bed if a chest of drawers goes there. Below 50cm a room stops functioning.
Is contents insurance worth it for a rented flat?
Yes. The landlord insures the building, not your possessions, and a first flat is when people typically own just enough to hurt to lose and assume it is not worth covering. Check whether the policy covers accidental damage to the landlord's fixtures too.
Getting the order right
Do the day-one checks before you unpack, sort the council tax and broadband in the first week, buy the bed before the sofa, measure the stairs before you buy anything large, and choose furniture that stores things rather than furniture plus storage. Get that sequence right and the flat comes together in weeks rather than months, and costs noticeably less doing it.
