Holiday rental inventory: free and dated on the blockchain

A stain on the sofa, a chipped glass, an oven that no longer heats up: in a holiday rental, these details sometimes end up as a deduction from the deposit, weeks after leaving. And the holidaymaker rarely has anything to answer with. OSCAR is launching a simple service to change that: a holiday rental inventory made by the guest themselves, free, and dated in a tamper-proof way on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Holiday rental: an inventory is not compulsory

In France, for an unfurnished or furnished rental let all year round, the inventory (état des lieux) is governed by law. For a holiday rental, no text requires one, and in practice it is often rushed, or even forgotten. Yet the absence of an inventory works against the guest: under article 1731 of the French Civil Code (Code civil), a tenant who has not made an inventory is presumed to have received the place in good condition, and must return it that way, unless proven otherwise. In other words, it is up to the holidaymaker to prove that the stain was already there.

Taking photos with your phone helps, but is not always enough: the date of a file is easy to change, and an image can now be retouched in a few seconds, including with artificial intelligence. The owner can dispute photos whose date nothing guarantees.

How OSCAR's holiday rental inventory works

The holidaymaker opens the page on their phone, without creating an account. They enter the address of the place, take one photo per room and then the details (especially anything already damaged), add a caption if they wish, then sign with their finger. The date and time are added automatically.

OSCAR then produces a PDF that brings together the address, the photos, the signature and the digital fingerprint of each original photo. This PDF's fingerprint is then timestamped on the Bitcoin blockchain, the most recognised and most secure in the world. The holidaymaker downloads a folder containing the PDF, its blockchain proof and the photos, and keeps the originals in their gallery. They do it again on departure, after cleaning.

Why it is solid proof

A document's fingerprint is like a fingerprint: change a single pixel of a photo or a single word of the PDF, and it no longer matches. Once written on the blockchain, it proves that the report already existed on that date and has not been changed since. Nobody can backdate it or erase it, not even OSCAR. And anyone can check it for free, with a standard blockchain verification tool, without going through us.

The report remains a piece of evidence made by the guest alone: it is neither an inventory signed by both parties nor a report drawn up by a French bailiff (commissaire de justice). The owner, the booking platform or a judge assess it freely. But in the event of a claim, it makes it possible to show, with dated photos, what the place was like on arrival and how it was handed back.

Free, and your photos stay with you

Existing inventory apps are mainly aimed at owners and agencies, and most of them are paid, often a few euros per inventory. To our knowledge, none offers holidaymakers a free report, with no account, whose date is guaranteed by the blockchain. With OSCAR, everything happens on the phone: the photos are never sent to our servers, only the document's fingerprint leaves to be timestamped on the Bitcoin blockchain. Nothing is stored, so nothing is charged.

And if you wish, a free vault

A lost phone or deleted photos: the proof would disappear with them. At the end of the report, the holidaymaker can therefore choose to keep it in their OSCAR vault by creating a free account. The PDF and its blockchain proof stay there for 6 months, the time it takes to get the deposit back, for up to 3 reports. An e-mail warns 15 days before the automatic deletion. It is a choice: without an account, nothing leaves the phone.

In the event of a disagreement about the deposit, the holidaymaker sends their PDFs to the owner or attaches them to their claim with the platform. If the dispute continues in France, a conciliator (conciliateur de justice) can be contacted free of charge with the same file.