Property & Tenancy

How it works

The mechanics of this kit, plainly — what runs and when, where the data lands, and what you look at.

• Property sweep runs mondays · 7:45am and keeps the The tenancy dashboard fresh. Mondays — raises the period's rent rows, marks what is late, warns sixty days before a date, and speaks only when something needs you.
• What is captured lands in the Tenancies dataset, which lives at Data/Tenancies in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Rent ledger dataset, which lives at Data/Rent Ledger in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Compliance register dataset, which lives at Data/Compliance Register in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Maintenance log dataset, which lives at Data/Maintenance Log in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Tenancy steps dataset, which lives at Data/Tenancy Steps in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Inventory dataset, which lives at Data/Property Inventory in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Inspection log dataset, which lives at Data/Inspection Log in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• The The tenancy dashboard reads from the dataset and shows, at a glance: owed to you · rent received to date · let · gross yield · repairs and costs, last 12 months · inspect a property · tenancy steps · rent received, by property · rent received, month by month · dates coming up · certificates, by status · open maintenance · rent less repairs, by property · rent status · how this board works.

The wiring, in one breath: Property capture writes to Tenancies · Property capture writes to Compliance register · Property capture writes to Maintenance log · Rent match writes to Rent ledger · Property capture writes to Rent ledger · Tenancies shown by The tenancy · Rent ledger shown by The tenancy · Compliance register shown by The tenancy · The tenancy kept fresh by Property sweep · Property sweep writes to Rent ledger · Rent match given to Slate · Slate holds Tenancy start and end · Tenancy start and end writes to Tenancy steps · Slate holds Inventory and inspections · Inventory and inspections keeps Inventory · Inventory logs into Inspection log · Slate holds Tenant messages · Slate holds Lettings figures.

Getting the most from it

A kit earns its place when it changes what you look at and what you say, not when it is installed. This is the rhythm that makes it pay.

• Put every let property on the register the day you install — the tenant, the rent and its due day, when the term ends, the certificates you hold, even roughly. Owed to you and Dates coming up are worth a glance every Monday, after the Property sweep has raised the period's rows.
• Say a rent the way you'd say it to a friend — "the flat's rent came in", "Jordan paid $700 of the $1,400" — and Property capture marks the ledger. With two properties that could fit, name which; if you don't, Slate asks rather than guessing. A rent is never marked received because the date passed.
• When a bank or agent statement arrives, add it to the vault and say what it is. Rent match marks the periods it shows from the document, not from memory — that is the correction that keeps Rent status true. On a statement you have imported as a table, tag a payment with the property it belongs to and Rent match takes your word for it, which settles two lets at the same rent without a question.
• Mention a certificate the day it is renewed, with the date it runs out — "the gas check is done at the cottage, runs out next August". Dates coming up can only warn about a date it holds; a blank expiry is named once on the card and then left to you.
• Read Certificates, by status and Dates coming up before you read anything else on the board: they are the two things that become a problem if nobody looks. Open maintenance, oldest first, is the third.
• Ask Slate for what is on the record when you are weighing a rent rise, a notice or an arrears conversation — and expect the official guidance for where you are and the plain line that this is a record, not legal advice. The decision is yours, and so is sending anything Slate drafts; nothing here contacts a tenant.
• When a tenancy is starting or ending, tell Slate and ask for the steps. Tenancy start and end looks up the official guidance for where the property is and writes the steps to the board as Tenancy steps, each with its source, and a date only where the guidance counts one from a date on your record, such as a deadline for the deposit where your country sets one. Tick each one off on the board as it is done; Dates coming up names a step as its date comes close.
• Go round each let property with Slate once to put its inventory on record, room by room, with the state each thing was in at the start. From then on, Inspect a property on the board walks it a room at a time and keeps each inspection. At the checkout, Slate sets the start beside the latest inspection and says what changed, never what comes out of a deposit.
• Need to write to a tenant about the rent, a visit or a repair? Ask Slate for a draft. It writes from the record and your words, and you send it yourself. A notice the law gives a set form, such as one ending a tenancy, is never drafted: Slate names the official source for it instead.
• Ask what the lettings brought in this year, or what a rent rise would come to. Lettings figures adds up the rent and the costs on your records with every line shown, and works a new rent on your own figures, with the yield before and after when a valuation is on record. It never tells you what to charge, and which costs count for tax is a question for Tax Season.

Make it yours

Nothing here is fixed. The pieces are ordinary agents, routines, datasets and dashboards, so anything you know about shaping those applies. Retire whatever earns nothing.

Things people usually change first

Say any of these in chat, or edit them on the kit’s page in the app.

• What you call each property and each tenancy — the names on the registers are the words Slate uses back.
• How far ahead a date is flagged: sixty days is the default for a certificate, a licence or a fixed term ending.
• Which sender, if any, the Monday sweep may read email from for rent statements — none unless you name one.
• Which country and region the properties are in: the official guidance Slate reads, and the steps it sets out, follow it.
• The year your lettings figures are kept by: a calendar year, or a tax year that starts on a set date.
• When the Monday sweep runs, or turning it off and keeping the registers by hand.

Your first run

Installing starts a short setup conversation — not a form. Answer roughly, correct later.

1. Installing ends with "Meet Slate", the Kit's own keeper, and a short conversation, not a form. Slate starts from what 1Presence already knows: anything you have told it before, and any tenancy agreement, certificate or letting agent's statement in your vault (it asks your permission to look there if it needs to). It shows you what it found so you can confirm or correct it, and asks only for the gaps. Then one property at a time: what you call it, who is in it, the rent and when it is due, when the tenancy started and the fixed term ends, the notice period, the deposit and where it is held. Each row lands as you say it; a rough date is fine, a blank is fine. An agreement is read for the facts it states, and nothing here is legal or financial advice.
2. For each property, one tap-to-answer panel offers the whole territory of what a let place carries in the country it is in, by that country's own names (a safety check, an energy certificate, alarms, a licence or registration, the deposit), leaving out what Slate already found, so the one you forgot gets its chance. What you pick becomes a compliance row, and Slate asks when each runs out; if you do not know, the date is on the certificate, and you can add it for Slate to read. What does not apply is marked so it is never asked again. Then one light question: is anything currently reported or broken there?
3. Nothing in that conversation reads an account or asks for a connector. If you say your agent's statements arrive by email, Slate offers that one check by name, and the sweep reads that sender only once you have connected email and said yes. If Home & Upkeep keeps your Properties register, the places on it are offered by name rather than asked again; if Assets & Holdings is installed, a property's valuation is read from there for the yield, never asked here.
4. If you stop part-way, nothing is lost. A tenancy with no rent day gives the sweep nothing to raise, and a certificate with no date gives it nothing to warn about, so whatever is still missing waits on the Kit page with a way back to Slate, and Slate offers it once the next time you talk. Tell it a part does not apply to you, or that you have finished setting up, and it stops asking. Until a tenancy is on the register, the Monday sweep leaves one card inviting you in rather than raising nothing. Household bills and a buy-to-let mortgage are other Kits' desks — Slate hands you across rather than filing them here.
5. From the first Monday with a tenancy on the register, the Property sweep raises the period's rent row for each from its own terms, marks a row late when the day has passed with nothing in, marks a certificate due soon sixty days out, counts the open repairs, and redraws the board. Most weeks it says nothing. It leaves one card only when a rent is late, a date is within sixty days, a fixed term has ended without a word, or a repair has waited more than a fortnight.

Watch the first pass, then tell it what you would have done differently — that correction teaches it more than any setup could.

The essentials

Learning, preferences and run costs work the same in every kit — so they are covered once, in the Kits guide.

Living with a Kit — the Kits guide →

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