Help with Witnessed

Witnessed is an iPhone and iPad app for people who let property: landlords, letting agents, and short-let and holiday-let hosts, as well as tenants and tradespeople. It keeps properties, tenancies, guest stays, inspections, compliance certificates and repairs in one place.

Photos, videos, audio recordings, document scans and inspection reports are sealed as you make them, with a SHA-256 fingerprint and an RFC 3161 timestamp from an independent authority, so any later change to the file can be detected.

No. There is no sign-up, no password and no email address to hand over. Your records are stored on your iPhone or iPad. If you turn on iCloud backup, it uses the Apple ID you are already signed in with.

iPhone and iPad. An Android version is not available yet.

Witnessed won’t run on a jailbroken device, because the integrity of the evidence depends on an unmodified operating system.

Inventory, check-in, check-out, mid-term, guest turnover, repair or maintenance, contractor handover, and a general record for anything else.

Each one builds a room-by-room checklist from the property’s own rooms. For every item you can rate condition and cleanliness, add notes, and attach photos and video. Depending on the type, you can also record meter readings, keys handed over, smoke and carbon monoxide alarm checks, and signatures taken on screen. When you’re done, one tap seals the whole inspection as a PDF report.

A check-out (or a guest turnover) is compared with the earlier check-in, inventory or turnover for the same property, item by item. Anything that has got worse is highlighted, and you can add a proposed charge against it. The comparison and the total of proposed charges go into the sealed report.

Proposed charges are your own figures. Whether a deduction is fair is for you and the tenant to agree, or for the deposit scheme’s adjudicator to decide.

The tenant, guest or contractor signs on your screen. Each signature is tied to a fingerprint of exactly what they were shown: the descriptions, ratings, readings and photos. If any of that changes afterwards, the app shows that the signature no longer matches the current version.

One certificate, however many photos are in it. The certificate is used when you start the inspection and covers every photo and video in it plus the sealed report. On Witnessed Pro, inspections are unlimited.

Gas Safety records, EICRs, EPCs, smoke and CO alarm checks, deposit protection, prescribed information, the How to Rent guide, Right to Rent checks, written statements of terms, HMO licences, fire risk and legionella assessments, PAT testing, landlord insurance, and any other document you want on file.

When you add one, Witnessed suggests an expiry date from its typical validity (a year for Gas Safety, five years for an EICR, ten for an EPC), which you can change. It also works out deposit protection and prescribed information deadlines for new tenancies, flags a check-out as a tenancy ends, and tracks repair response times. Reminders arrive as notifications on your device ahead of time and on the morning a deadline is due.

The certificate types, suggested dates and deadlines are general guidance, and many of them follow the rules in England. Requirements differ across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and they change over time.

Check what applies to your property with the official guidance for your nation or a qualified adviser, and edit dates in the app to match. Witnessed isn’t legal advice.

Booking platforms usually expect damage to be reported soon after a guest leaves. When you add a guest stay, Witnessed counts 14 days from the checkout date and reminds you before that window closes. Platforms set their own rules and can change them, so check the terms of the one you use.

Log an issue with its category and severity, and Witnessed sets a response date: make safe within 24 hours for an emergency, investigate within 10 working days for an urgent problem such as damp or mould. Each step (reported, acknowledged, investigated, summary sent, work scheduled, completed) is added to a dated timeline, with sealed photos if you take them.

These timelines follow the approach of the newer rules on hazards like damp and mould. They are guidance only and may not match the legal requirements for your tenancy.

A normal photo carries metadata that anyone can edit: the date, the location, even the image itself. When Witnessed seals a file, it calculates a SHA-256 fingerprint of the exact file on your device and sends only that fingerprint to an independent timestamp authority, which signs it together with the time under RFC 3161.

Anyone checking the file later can confirm that it hasn’t changed by a single byte, and that it existed no later than the moment the authority signed it. Neither depends on trusting you or us.

The certificate also records the capture time, the device and, if you allow it, the location. Those details come from your phone and are there for context; the authority’s signature covers the fingerprint and the time.

DigiCert first. If DigiCert can’t be reached, Sectigo, then FreeTSA. The authority that signed each item is named on its certificate and inside its timestamp token.

Send them an evidence pack. It’s a ZIP with the original file exactly as sealed, its PDF certificate, the authority’s timestamp token (a .tsr file), a machine-readable manifest and a plain-English guide. Inspection packs include the sealed report and its token too.

They can drop the file and token into witnessed.uk/verify, which checks the fingerprint and the authority’s signature in their browser without uploading anything, or scan the QR code on the certificate PDF. Anyone technical can do the same with standard tools such as OpenSSL. None of it goes through us.

Yes, but they’re clearly marked as imported. The timestamp shows when the file was sealed, not when the photo was taken. Where the photo’s own metadata includes a date, it’s shown for reference, and no location is recorded for imports.

No app can promise that, and we won’t. RFC 3161 is a long-established international standard for trusted timestamps, and a sealed file can be checked by anyone, which makes it considerably harder to dismiss than an ordinary photo with editable metadata.

But how evidence is weighed is always up to the adjudicator or court, and a certificate doesn’t prove that what was in front of the lens is what anyone says it is. Nothing Witnessed provides is legal advice. If a matter is significant, take advice from a qualified professional.

Yes. You can inspect and capture anywhere. The timestamp has to be requested over the internet, so in a basement flat or a rural cottage items are saved and marked Pending, then timestamped automatically as soon as you’re back online or next open the app.

The fingerprint is calculated at capture, so the timestamp that arrives later still applies to the file exactly as you took it. The time it shows is when the authority signed it.

On your iPhone or iPad. iCloud backup is optional and off until you turn it on in Settings; when it is on, copies go to your own private iCloud using Apple’s CloudKit, which we cannot open or read.

Witnessed has no server holding your data. The only thing sent anywhere for sealing is a file’s SHA-256 fingerprint, never the file. The privacy policy lists every other connection the app makes.

If iCloud backup was on, install Witnessed on your new device, sign in with the same Apple ID and choose Settings → Restore from iCloud in the app.

If backup was off, records that only existed on the lost device can’t be recovered, and we have no copy to send you. Reports and evidence packs you already shared stay with whoever you sent them to. That’s why it’s worth turning backup on, or exporting anything important.

Deleted evidence goes to Recently Deleted for 30 days, so a mistake can be undone. You can empty it sooner.

To remove everything, open Settings → Delete all data in the app. That deletes your evidence, properties, inspections, tenancies, documents and issues from the device, and their copies in your iCloud backup if backup is on. Your plan and settings stay.

Because we never held a copy, there is nothing on our side to delete. Once it’s gone, it’s gone, so export anything you might need first.

Names, contact details and signatures you add for tenants, guests or contractors are stored the same way as everything else: on your device, and in your private iCloud if backup is on. We never receive them.

They appear in the reports and packs you choose to share. As a landlord or agent, you’re responsible for handling that information in line with data protection law.

Three sealed certificates each calendar month, where a whole inspection counts as one. The allowance resets at the start of each month, and unused certificates don’t roll over.

Properties, tenancies, compliance tracking, reminders, search and exports aren’t limited on the free plan. What the plans cover is sealing.

It’s a one-off £1.49 purchase that seals one item or one whole inspection. Nothing renews. It’s used once your free certificates for the month have gone.

Unused single certificates are kept securely on the device you bought them on and survive reinstalling the app. Restore Purchases brings back Witnessed Pro, but Apple doesn’t restore one-off (consumable) purchases like single certificates. If you think one has gone missing, email us.

In the app: Settings → Manage subscription. Or on your iPhone or iPad: Settings → tap your name → Subscriptions → Witnessed → Cancel Subscription.

Cancel at least 24 hours before the end of the current period to avoid the next renewal. You keep Pro until the end of the period you’ve paid for, and certificates you’ve already sealed stay valid.

All purchases go through Apple, so refunds are handled by Apple rather than by us. Go to reportaproblem.apple.com, sign in with your Apple ID and select the Witnessed purchase.

If something went wrong on our side, such as a report that failed to seal or a charge that looks wrong, email us first and we will help you make the case.