How to use rm8tes

Part 01

Create your profile

One account, one profile, and you are in. It takes about a minute, and nothing else in the app opens until it exists.

1. Step 01

   Open the app and pick a door

   FIND A ROOM if you are looking for somewhere; LIST A ROOM if you have a room to fill. Both go to the same sign-up form — the choice only tells us which way round to show you things later, and you are not stuck with it.

   

2. Step 02

   Make the account

   Your email address, then a password of at least eight characters, typed twice. Tap CREATE ACCOUNT and we email you a confirmation link.

   Open that link on the same phone. It is what actually signs you in; opening it on a laptop leaves the app still waiting.

   Been here before? ALREADY REGISTERED? LOG IN flips the form over, and FORGOT PASSWORD? sends a reset link to whatever address is in the field — that link only works on the phone you open it on, too.

   

3. Step 03

   Add a photo

   Tap the tile marked + PHOTO and choose TAKE A PHOTO or CHOOSE FROM GALLERY. It is shrunk on your phone before it uploads, so it will not eat your data.

   You can skip it and add one later from the profile screen — but a profile with a face on it gets answered rather more often.

   

4. Step 04

   Fill in who you are

   Three things are required: NAME, AGE (16 or over), and one of STUDENT / INTERN / BOTH. Gender is optional — tap your answer a second time to clear it again.

   Everything else is yours to leave blank: profession, location, monthly budget.

   

5. Step 05

   Say how you live, then save

   A short bio (up to 300 characters) and as many LIFESTYLE TAGS as actually fit — non-smoker, tidy, night owl, cooks a lot, and so on. Tap to add, tap again to drop.

   SAVE PROFILE writes it and takes you to your home screen.

   

6. Step 06

   Where you land

   Home is the hub: your property at the top, the menu underneath. With no tenancy yet it says NO ACTIVE FLAT and offers SET UP YOUR TENANCY — do that when you have signed for somewhere, or let a viewing become your flat (that is Part 02).

   Your name at the top reopens the profile, where you can edit anything, switch the theme, or delete the account outright.

   

Deleting your account is permanent. It is on the profile screen, it cannot be undone, and it takes your photos with it. If you might still need an evidence pack — for a deposit dispute, say — generate and save the PDF before you delete. See Support.

Part 02

Work the viewing checklist

Eight things worth knowing about a flat that you will not remember to ask about while an agent is walking you round it, and definitely will not remember afterwards when three flats have blurred into one. Keep one checklist per viewing and they stay separate.

You do not need a tenancy for this — it works from your very first viewing, before rm8tes knows where you live.

1. Step 01

   Home → LOG INVENTORY → VIEWING CHECKLIST

   The log menu holds the three things you capture: VIEWING CHECKLIST, MOVE-IN AUDIT and LIVING DIARY.

   The bottom two show a padlock until you have an active flat, because they build evidence against a tenancy. The checklist never locks.

   

2. Step 02

   Start a viewing

   The first time through, the list is empty. Tap + NEW VIEWING.

   

3. Step 03

   Name the flat

   Type enough of the address to tell it apart from the next one — 14 Camden High St, NW1 beats the one with the blue door when you are comparing four of them on the bus home. Tap START and the checklist opens.

   

4. Step 04

   Work down it in the flat

   Eight prompts, each with a note field, and a counter at the top that fills as you go:

   • Water pressure — run the shower
   • Boiler age — model and year off the label
   • EPC rating — must be E or above to let legally
   • Council tax band — it lands on your budget, not the landlord’s
   • Mobile signal — check it room by room
   • Damp or mould — corners, window seals, behind furniture
   • Heating — turn the radiators on and wait
   • Broadband speed

   The notes are the part that pays off later, so write what you saw, not just that you looked. SAVE CHECKLIST stores it against your account — reopen the flat any time and carry on where you stopped.

   

5. Step 05

   Compare them side by side

   Every flat you have viewed sits in one list with its date and how far through you got. Tap one to reopen its notes; the bin icon deletes a flat and its checklist for good.

   

6. Step 06

   Turn the one you took into your flat

   Signed for it? Tap MOVE IN on that viewing. It asks who holds your deposit, their email (optional, for sign-off later) and how much the deposit is.

   The viewing leaves the list and becomes your active property on home — which is what unlocks the move-in audit in Part 03.

   

Part 03

Photograph the flat at move-in

This is the part that gets your deposit back. Five photos each on the day you move in, each one fingerprinted, time-stamped and located as you take it, then locked so nobody — including us — can quietly change them later. At move-out you retake the same shots and the two sit side by side. How the proof holds up.

Do it before you unpack. A few minutes on the day you get the keys is worth more than any argument you can make in June.

1. Step 01

   You need an active property first

   The audit hangs off a tenancy, so home has to show one: either SET UP YOUR TENANCY straight from home, or MOVE IN from a saved viewing.

   Living with other people? Set the flat up once and hand out a join code from the HOUSEHOLD screen. Everyone who redeems it shares the same vault, every photo is credited to whoever took it, and the audit only seals when you all agree it is done. More on households.

   

2. Step 02

   LOG INVENTORY → MOVE-IN AUDIT

   You start with a list of five, our pick of what matters most: the kitchen, the inside of the oven, the shower or bath tiles and grout, your bedroom, and any damp or mould.

   The counter at the top — 0 OF 5 PHOTOS USED — is yours alone. Everyone who lives in the flat gets five of their own.

   

3. Step 03

   Make the list fit your flat

   No oven worth photographing, but a stained carpet that matters more? SWAP on any shot opens the rest of the suggestions, grouped by room, and SOMETHING ELSE… at the bottom lets you name it yourself. The cross beside SWAP takes a shot off the list, and ADD A SHOT appears whenever you have room for one.

   Every shot has its name before you take it. That name is what you will retake at move-out and what the evidence pack prints under the photo, so it is never left to fill in afterwards.

   

4. Step 04

   Sharing the flat? Say which room is yours

   When more than one person lives in the household, the audit asks two things first: which room is yours, and whether you share the bathroom or have your own.

   Your own shots are named after your room — BEDROOM 2 — FULL VIEW — so the pack can tell your bedroom from your flatmate’s. Use the room, never a person’s name: the shot’s name becomes part of the permanent record.

   

5. Step 05

   Shared spaces are photographed once

   Your list splits in two. YOURS comes first — your room, and your en-suite if you have one — because nobody else can take those. SHARED is the kitchen, the oven and a shared bathroom: one photo each for the whole household, taken by whoever gets there first.

   A shared photo a flatmate took shows their name and does not count towards your five. Further down, FLATMATES shows how far everyone else has got with their own rooms.

   Joined after the others? A shared photo taken more than 14 days before you joined the household no longer shows the flat as you found it. Your list gets your own retake of it, and that retake is one of your five.

   

6. Step 06

   Start the walkthrough

   START walks you through whatever is left on your list, one shot at a time. Each screen names the shot and tags it with a category.

   SKIP leaves one for later; BACK returns to the list, where you can still swap it. Leave halfway through and the list remembers what you have taken.

   

7. Step 07

   Take the shot

   CAPTURE PHOTO opens the camera — and only the camera. There is no “choose from gallery” here on purpose: a photo that could have come from anywhere proves nothing about this flat on this day.

   The moment the shutter closes, your phone records the time and asks for a GPS fix, and you get a preview to check before it goes anywhere:

   

   Blurred, or you caught your own foot? RETAKE replaces it — nothing has been saved yet.

   A missing GPS fix never blocks you. Basements, thick walls and blocked location permissions all happen; the badge turns amber and reads NO GPS FIX, and the photo is still perfectly good evidence. The timestamp is the part that carries weight.

8. Step 08

   Save it and move on

   NEXT — SAVE & CONTINUE uploads the photo and moves you to the next shot on your list. That upload is where the record is actually made: our server recomputes the photo’s fingerprint from the file it received and refuses the whole thing if it disagrees with what your phone sent.

   Once a shot holds a photo, that slot is closed. You cannot swap it for a nicer one an hour later, and neither can anyone else — which is exactly why a deposit scheme will take it seriously. If a flatmate photographed the same shared shot a moment before you did, theirs stands and the app moves you on.

9. Step 09

   Finish the round

   Once your five are taken the counter reads 5 OF 5 PHOTOS USED, and GO TO CHECKLIST takes you on. Want to stop with photos to spare? DONE FOR NOW — CHECKLIST on the list does the same.

   

10. Step 10

    Write down the damage you inherited

    Twenty-four rows across six categories — walls, carpet, furniture, appliances, bathroom, kitchen. Tick anything that is already wrong and grade it MINOR, MODERATE or SEVERE. The pills along the top filter by room.

    This is the list a landlord will quietly turn into deductions if you never made it. A scuff you photographed and graded on day one is not damage you caused.

    

11. Step 11

    Seal it

    COMPLETE CHECK-IN asks first, because sealing is one-way: no more photos against this move-in, no more checklist edits, ever. That permanence is the point — it is what stops “move-in photos” from appearing months into a dispute.

    In a shared flat, every other flatmate has to agree it is complete before it will seal. If someone has gone quiet, the household owner can seal anyway — and the evidence pack records in writing that they did.

    

12. Step 12

    What you are left holding

    The audit becomes a closed record: how many photos it holds, when it was sealed, and no camera anywhere on the screen.

    From here the flat looks after itself. Log repairs and replacements in the LIVING DIARY as they happen, and when you leave, MOVE-OUT AUDIT replays the move-in shots one at a time so you can mirror them — then packs the lot into a PDF you can hand to a deposit scheme.

    

One more time, because it is the only irreversible thing here. Sealing cannot be undone, and neither can deleting your account. Everything else in rm8tes you can edit, retake or change your mind about.

Part 04

The move-out audit

The day you hand back your keys, not before. rm8tes pulls up your move-in photos one at a time and asks you to retake the exact same shot, so the two sit side by side in your evidence pack — an argument about what changed has two photos to answer to, not your word against theirs.

You need a sealed move-in audit first (Part 03) — there is nothing to mirror against otherwise.

1. Step 01

   Two ways in

   From home, MOVE-OUT AUDIT runs on whatever flat is currently active. Already archived the flat (Part 05)? Tap its card instead and choose MOVE-OUT AUDIT & PACK — the same screen, aimed at that one flat by name.

   The intro screen counts your move-in photos and lays out the four steps: pull them up, retake each one from the same angle, pair them up, build the PDF. With nothing to mirror, BEGIN MIRROR FLOW stays dead until a move-in audit exists.

   Sharing the flat? You mirror the shared shots and your own. A flatmate’s own shots wait for them — the intro says so, as in WAITING ON BEDROOM 1: 2 SHOTS — unless they have already left the household, in which case they are yours to mirror.

   

2. Step 02

   Match the old shot

   BEGIN MIRROR FLOW puts your move-in photo on the left and an empty frame on the right, both under the same name — KITCHEN — FULL VIEW, say. CAPTURE MIRROR SHOT opens the camera only, same as move-in; line the shot up as closely as you can and RETAKE if it is not close enough.

   SKIP passes over a shot you cannot retake — it is simply left unpaired in the pack rather than blocking you. The progress bar counts down the shots you have to mirror, so you always know how many are left.

   

3. Step 03

   Finish & seal

   Work through every shot and the footer becomes FINISH & SEAL MOVE-OUT. Sealing is one-way, same as move-in and for the same reason: a photo taken after everyone has left and the keys are back is not a photo anyone should trust the date of.

   You need at least one mirror shot to seal — an empty move-out cannot be closed. Sharing the flat? The seal only fires once every flatmate has agreed the round is done; the household owner can push it through if someone has gone quiet, and the pack notes in writing that they did.

   

4. Step 04

   Your evidence pack

   MOVE-OUT COMPLETE totals up what you have got — move-in photos, move-out photos, diary events — and offers GENERATE PDF. That builds the deposit dispute evidence pack: your photo pairs, the damage checklist from move-in, your maintenance diary, and the proof (Part 06) that none of it could have been quietly changed, by anyone, us included.

   SHARE PDF hands it to whatever app you would use to email, save or print it. Added a diary entry or a deposit outcome since? REGEN rebuilds the pack to include it.

   

Sealing a move-out cannot be undone, same as move-in. If a flatmate has not agreed yet, it is worth waiting for them rather than reaching for the override just to move faster — it is exactly the kind of thing a dispute reads back later.

Part 05

Recording your deposit outcome

Where the money actually went, on the record, once you know. This only exists once a flat has been archived — because the moment you move out, the honest answer is always “don’t know yet”: a deposit can legally take up to ten days to sort out once the amount is agreed.

1. Step 01

   Archive the flat

   Tap your ACTIVE PROPERTY card on home — the one from Part 03 — and choose MOVE OUT — ARCHIVE. It moves to your archive; nothing is deleted, and every photo and record stays exactly where it is.

   The moment you confirm, rm8tes opens a deposit record for you automatically, set to AWAITING. You do not have to do anything with it yet.

   

2. Step 02

   Confirm, then find it again

   “Move out of this flat?” is the only check — ARCHIVE and it is done. Back on home, ARCHIVED (1) unfolds every flat you have left, each showing its address and current deposit status. Tap one to reopen its sheet.

   

3. Step 03

   Four ways into a closed flat

   The archived card’s sheet is the only door left into that flat’s evidence: DEPOSIT OUTCOME, MOVE-OUT AUDIT & PACK, EVIDENCE VAULT, LIVING DIARY. Tap DEPOSIT OUTCOME to say what happened to the money.

   

4. Step 04

   Say what happened

   AT RISK shows the amount you set at move-in. Below it, four choices. STILL WAITING and IN DISPUTE stay open and editable for as long as things are unresolved — change your mind as often as you need to. RETURNED IN FULL and PARTLY RETURNED are the two settled outcomes, and they are permanent: pick one only once the money has actually landed.

   

5. Step 05

   The permanent bit

   Choosing a settled outcome opens two more fields: HOW MUCH CAME BACK — it cannot be more than what was at risk, and RETURNED IN FULL has to mean the full amount, so pick PARTLY RETURNED if even a penny was kept back — and WHEN, a date picker. A note is optional, and worth using if anything was deducted: the reason sits right next to the amount from then on.

   Before you save, rm8tes says it plainly: this is permanent. A settled outcome is hashed and anchored to Bitcoin with the rest of your evidence (Part 06 explains what that means), and it can never be edited afterwards — only corrected by adding a new entry on top, with both staying visible.

   

6. Step 06

   The record, and correcting it later

   SAVE OUTCOME writes it. A settled outcome shows as a green ATTESTED card with the date, any note, and a RECORD HASH — a short code that is this exact record’s fingerprint, the same idea Part 06 walks through for your photos.

   Typed the wrong amount, or the wrong date? CORRECT THIS RECORD opens a fresh form. The old entry does not vanish — it drops into an amended list below, marked SUPERSEDED, so anyone reading the pack later can see exactly what changed and when.

   

STILL WAITING and IN DISPUTE are not final — change them whenever the situation moves on. RETURNED IN FULL and PARTLY RETURNED are: check the amount and the date before you save.

Part 06

Understanding your evidence pack

You do not need to read this section to use rm8tes — your photos are protected whether you understand any of it or not. But “hash” and “Bitcoin” turn up on screen and in your PDF, and unexplained jargon is exactly what makes an evidence pack feel intimidating instead of reassuring. So here it is in plain English — no technical background required.

1. Step 01

   What’s actually in the PDF

   Five parts, in order: your move-in and move-out photos side by side, the damage list you made on day one, your maintenance diary, and then two sections that do the trust-building — one saying “here is proof we did not touch your photos,” the other saying “and here is proof you do not even have to take our word for that.” Those last two are what the rest of this page explains.

2. Step 02

   The fingerprint on every photo

   Imagine every photo you take gets its own fingerprint — a long code, a bit like a barcode, that belongs to that exact photo and no other. Change one single dot in the picture, even by accident, and the fingerprint comes out completely different. Leave the photo exactly as it was, and the fingerprint always comes out exactly the same.

   That is the whole trick. A fingerprint that still matches is proof the photo is pixel-for-pixel the one that was taken — nothing swapped, nothing touched up, nothing quietly redone. And it is not your phone grading its own homework: the rm8tes server works the fingerprint out for itself, from the file it actually received, and refuses to save anything that does not match what your phone said it sent.

   // SEE IT YOURSELF // Open any photo in your EVIDENCE VAULT and scroll to the bottom. That green HASH VERIFIED BY SERVER badge is this, already done for you — the fingerprint has been checked, and it matches.

   

3. Step 03

   The bit that proves when, not just what

   A fingerprint proves a photo has not changed. It does not, by itself, prove when it was first taken — and “when did you actually take this” is exactly what a deposit argument turns into. So once an hour, rm8tes takes every fingerprint made in that hour and writes them into something nobody — not you, not your landlord, not rm8tes — can secretly go back and rewrite: the Bitcoin blockchain, using a free tool called OpenTimestamps.

   Think of it like getting a letter postmarked at the post office. Once that stamp is on it, nobody can pretend it was written on a different day. Bitcoin’s version of a postmark works the same way, except instead of one post office keeping the record, it is checked and copied by thousands of computers all over the world at once — which is exactly why nobody can quietly change it afterwards, us included.

   // NO, YOU DON’T NEED ANY BITCOIN // You never buy, hold or spend anything. rm8tes just borrows its ledger — the one part of the internet nobody owns and nobody can edit — as a permanent, public place to store the date.

   This normally takes a few hours to fully lock in. Until then, your evidence pack will say a record is anchored but not yet confirmed — that is completely normal, not a fault. Once confirmed, that record’s date is fixed, in public, forever.

4. Step 04

   If anyone ever wants to check it themselves

   You will probably never need this — it is here so you know the option exists, not because we expect you to use it. The back of your evidence pack prints every fingerprint in full and lays out the exact steps for checking them, using free tools that talk directly to Bitcoin and never to rm8tes. That is the whole point of doing it this way: if we ever changed something, that check is what would catch it, not your word against ours.

   If a dispute ever goes as far as a solicitor or a scheme adjudicator, that is the part of the pack they would use. You do not have to understand it yourself for it to hold up.