The Damage Photo Checklist: What to Shoot Before and After Every Rental

A renter scratches a fender in June. You find it in July. In February a card issuer gives you ten business days to prove the damage happened during that rental.

Everything that answers them is a set of photos you took in about ninety seconds, months earlier, and a few words you wrote next to them.

This is the process. It takes longer to read than to do.

The shot list

Eight photos out, eight photos back. Same angles both times, so the pairs line up.

1. Wide, front three-quarter. The whole cart at an angle from the front left. Shows the front, the left side and the general condition in one frame.
2. Wide, rear three-quarter. Same from the back right. Between these two you have every exterior panel.
3. Front straight on. Bumper, lights, basket.
4. Rear straight on. Bumper, plate if fitted, rear seat or cargo bed.
5. Left side, flat. Stand back far enough to get the whole side in frame.
6. Right side, flat.
7. Seats and floor. Tears, stains, anything left behind.
8. Dash and odometer or hour meter, if fitted. The reading is your proof of use.

Then, for anything already wrong: a wide shot showing where it is on the cart, followed by a close-up of the damage itself.

That pairing matters more than the number of photos. Ten close-ups of scratches prove that scratches exist on some cart somewhere. One wide shot placing the scratch on the left rear quarter panel, followed by a close-up, proves it is on this cart in this place. Adjusters and card issuers need the second thing.

What makes a photo usable in a claim

• Daylight or good light. A photo taken in a dark shed proves nothing.
• Get closer than feels necessary on the close-ups. Fill the frame with the damaged area.
• Something for scale next to a dent or crack: a key, a coin, your thumb.
• Do not edit, crop or filter. An untouched file carries its own metadata, including the date and time it was taken. That timestamp is the whole reason the photo has value later.
• Shoot both directions the same way. If the handover photos are eight angles in daylight and the return photos are three blurry ones at dusk, the comparison is worthless.
• Include the tires. Sidewall damage and low pressure show up in disputes and almost nobody photographs them.

What to write next to each photo

A photo without a note is half a record. Four fields, and you can write them faster than you can say them.

1. Location on the vehicle, in plain language. Not "front left." Write "front left fender, lower edge, near the wheel arch." Somebody who has never seen your cart has to find it from your words alone.

2. What it is. "Deep scratch, roughly four inches." "Hairline crack." "Scuff, surface only." Describe what you see rather than what you think caused it.

3. Severity, from three options.

• Safety stops the cart renting until it is fixed: brakes, lights, steering, seat belts.
• Functional affects use but not safety: a broken cup holder, a torn seat, a charger port that sticks.
• Cosmetic is appearance only.

Three categories, used the same way every time, will serve you better than a ten-point scale you apply inconsistently.

4. Cause: already there, or found on this rental. The single most valuable field. It is what turns your photo library into an argument, because it lets you say "this was documented before the rental on June 14 and disclosed to that renter" or "this appeared between the June 14 return and the June 16 handover."

The handover conversation

This is the part that decides disputes, and it takes five minutes.

Walk around the cart with the renter before they leave. Point at the damage that is already there and name it out loud. "This scratch on the rear panel, that was here before, I'm noting it so nobody argues about it later."

Then have them acknowledge the cart's condition as documented, per your rental agreement.

Two things happen. You have a signature attached to a condition record, which is what a card issuer wants. And you have set an expectation, which is why renters who get the walk-around report new damage themselves instead of hoping you miss it.

Do the same walk-around at return, with the renter present if they are. Finding damage in front of somebody is a different conversation from calling them about it on Thursday.

When you find something after they have gone

• Same day. Check the cart in the day it comes back, not when you get around to it. A gap between the return and your discovery is the first thing anyone will ask about.
• Photograph before you touch it. Do not clean the area first.
• Message them the same day, with photos attached. Include the handover photo of the same area alongside the new one. Say what you found and what happens next, per your own agreement.
• Ask what they remember. Some of them will tell you, and the ones who feel accused are the ones who dispute.

What a claim file needs to contain

When you hand this to an insurer or answer a chargeback, one file with:

• The signed rental agreement for that booking, with its date, and the exact version signed
• Handover photos with their date stamps
• Return photos with their date stamps
• The condition note: location, description, severity, cause
• Your dated message to the renter and any reply
• Repair estimate or invoice
• The cart's identity: year, make, model, VIN, plate

Assemble that once and you will notice it is the same eight things every time. Which is the argument for logging condition against a specific cart as you go, rather than reconstructing it in February from a camera roll. We built that into Greenlit because we were tired of the reconstructing.

The pre-season baseline

Before your first rental of the season, photograph and log every cart in the fleet as it stands. Every existing scratch, dent and tear, documented with nobody's rental attached to it.

Everything that shows up after that has a date and a rental attached to it by default. The baseline is the cheapest hour you will spend all season.

Not insurance or legal advice. Your carrier and your card processor set their own documentation requirements; ask them what they want and in what format before you need to know. We rent carts at Welaka Golf Carts in Putnam County, Florida.