Add a tenant and create a lease

Add a tenant, then create the lease that ties them to a unit and sets the rent.

Before you start

• You need to be a property manager, account owner, or admin.
• The property and unit must already exist. See Add a property and its units.

Steps

1. Add the tenant. Select Tenants from the menu, then New tenant. Enter at least a First name and Last name. An email or phone is optional, but you need an email to invite them to their portal.
2. Create the lease. Select Leases from the menu, then New lease, and set: - the unit and the tenant you just added, - the rent and deposit amounts, entered in dollars, - the start and end dates, the rent due day of the month, and any late fee or grace period.
3. Save the lease. A new lease begins in an early stage and moves forward as you move the tenant in.

One tenancy per unit

A unit can only have one tenancy living in it at a time. You can still set up the next tenant while the current one is working out their notice: create the lease, sign it, and take the deposit. What waits is the move in. Once the current tenancy reaches move-out, the new one can go active.

The unit list on the New-lease form marks a unit (occupied) and sorts free units to the top, so the ones you can move a tenant into are the ones you see first.

What happens next

• The lease becomes the home for that tenancy. Rent, payments, the deposit, documents, and signatures all attach to it.
• Once the lease is active, rent is added on the schedule you set, and the tenant can pay online from their portal.
• If you entered the tenant's email, you can invite them to their portal so they can pay rent and send maintenance requests.

Work through the lists on a computer

On a screen 1024 pixels wide or more, Tenants and Leases are compact tables.

• Select a heading to order the whole list by it, and select it again to reverse the order. Tenants order by Name (by surname), Email or Phone. Leases order by Tenant, Property, Rent, Term or Stage. Term orders by the move-out date once notice is given, otherwise by the end date, and month to month tenancies come last.
• The order stays when you reload the page or share the link. On Leases, changing a filter keeps the order you chose.
• The headings stay in view while you scroll a long list.
• Select Columns to hide a column you do not need. Your choice is remembered on this browser.

Both lists show every tenant and every lease you can see. A list longer than 5,000 says so at the top and turns sorting off. On a phone or a tablet they show as cards, as before.

Troubleshooting

• No unit to pick. Add the property and at least one unit first.
• "This unit already has a live tenancy." Someone is already living there as far as your records go. It is often your own unfinished move-in, so check that first: open the property and look at Tenancy on the Overview, which names who is there and offers Resume move-in when one was started and never completed. Otherwise finish the current tenancy with End a tenancy and close it out, or if the tenancy in the unit was never real, use Fix a tenancy entered by mistake. You can keep preparing the new lease in the meantime. The unit list marks a unit (occupied) and sorts free units to the top, on both the New-lease form and Start a move-in, so you see this before you fill anything in.
• The tenant did not get an invite. Check their email on the tenant profile, then send the invitation again.

More than one tenant

A tenancy can have as many people on it as the lease names. Create it with one tenant, then add the others from People on this tenancy on the lease page. See Add a co-tenant to a tenancy.

Say it instead

You can also do this by saying or typing it: press Cmd K, or tap Say or type on a phone. If your account has it turned off, use the steps above.

1. Press Cmd K (or Ctrl K), or on a phone tap Say or type at the top of the screen.
2. Type or say it. For example, new tenant Sam Park sam@example.com.
3. Answer the few questions it asks by tapping: the full name (said once, the card shows how it is split into first and last name), then the email and phone, each skippable.
4. Check the card, then choose Yes, record it. To start the lease, say new lease: it asks the property, unit and tenant, says whether the unit is vacant, and opens the New lease form with them chosen. Nothing is saved until you finish the form.

Do it on the page is there at every step, and it keeps what you already answered where this page can take it.