Landlord help centre

Everything about running a rental portfolio in Tenarize — compliance checklists, tenancy agreements, rent collection, maintenance, reporting and your subscription. Search, or browse by topic.

Looking for the other side? Tenant help centre

Getting started

What Tenarize is, who it's for, and how to get your portfolio into it.

What is Tenarize?

Tenarize is UK property management software that walks private landlords through compliance, tenancy paperwork, rent collection and maintenance in one place.

Tenarize is a web platform for private landlords in England who want to run a rental portfolio properly without hiring a letting agent. It covers the whole life of a tenancy rather than one slice of it.

  • Compliance — structured checklists for vetting, safety certificates, move-in and move-out, each explaining the legal duty behind it.
  • Tenancy agreements — generated from a maintained template and e-signed by both parties.
  • Rent — Direct Debit collection, automatic monthly charges, arrears tracking and statutory late-payment interest.
  • Maintenance — tenant-reported issues, a searchable supplier database, costs and invoices.
  • Records — a document vault with expiry reminders, a per-tenancy audit trail, and reports you can hand an accountant.

Your tenants get their own portal where they review and sign documents, pay rent, report problems and see their own paperwork. See everything it does or what it costs.

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Who is Tenarize for?

Private and accidental landlords in England managing their own lettings — from a single inherited flat to a portfolio of twenty-plus properties.

Tenarize is built for landlords who manage their own properties rather than paying an agent a percentage of rent to do it. That includes the accidental landlord letting one inherited or previously-lived-in property, and the self-managing landlord running fifteen or twenty.

The product's centre of gravity is UK legal compliance. If your main worry is that you might unknowingly be breaking a rule — an expired gas certificate, an unprotected deposit, an unlicensed HMO, a property below the minimum EPC rating — that is the problem Tenarize was built around.

It is less of a fit if you already use a letting agent for full management, or if you need commercial-property or student-halls-scale features.

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Does Tenarize work in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland?

Not yet — Tenarize covers England only, and the app will refuse a property with a postcode it can identify as being outside England.

Tenarize is England-only. Scotland's Private Residential Tenancy regime, Wales's Renting Homes Act and Rent Smart Wales registration, and Northern Ireland's rules are genuinely different legal systems — the checklists, notice periods and tenancy agreement in Tenarize would be wrong for them, not merely incomplete.

Rather than let you record a property the compliance engine can't advise on, the app checks the address when you add or edit a property and rejects one it can identify as being outside England. Where Google's address data is available that check uses the country Google returns; otherwise it falls back to postcode areas that are unambiguously outside England.

Worth knowing: Border postcode areas that contain genuine English addresses are deliberately not blocked on the postcode check alone, so a real English property is never rejected by mistake.

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How do I sign up for Tenarize?

Register, accept the terms, choose a plan, then add your first property. The free trial needs a card but isn't charged until it ends.

  1. Click Get started and register with your name, email and a password. You'll need to tick the box accepting the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy — that acceptance is recorded against your account.
  2. Choose a plan. Every route in the app except the billing page stays behind a choose a plan screen until you have one, so this is the first real step rather than something to put off.
  3. Add your first property, with its address, type, number of bedrooms and furnishing status.
  4. Start a tenancy against it — that creates your vetting checklist and the workflow takes over from there.

You can add properties and walk the checklists straight away. Nothing reaches a tenant until you explicitly invite them or send an agreement for signature.

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I already have tenants. Can I bring existing tenancies into Tenarize?

Yes — 'Import existing tenancy' skips the parts that only make sense for a new let, so you aren't re-vetting a tenant who moved in years ago.

Next to Start new tenancy on any property page there's Import existing tenancy. It runs through the same pipeline as a new let, with three deliberate differences:

  • The vetting checklist gets a Mark all as already done button, so you're not re-recording reference checks for a tenant who has lived there for years.
  • The compliance checklist is *not* skippable — those certificates are exactly the paperwork an import exists to capture, and each one still wants its document.
  • The Renters' Rights Act Information Sheet item is reworded for an import, because a tenancy that is already running can't meet a 'before the tenancy is agreed' deadline. Landlords had to give the Information Sheet to tenants on existing tenancies by 31 May 2026, with a fine of up to £7,000 for not doing so, and the item says so.
  • No move-in checklist is created. The move-in already happened outside Tenarize, and generating a checklist would imply Tenarize verified something it never saw.

You then set the real terms — including a start date in the past, which is accepted — and activate the tenancy against the agreement you already have signed. See activating a tenancy with your own agreement.

Worth knowing: Imports are one tenancy at a time by design. There's no CSV bulk importer — on a compliance product, silently mass-creating records nobody has checked is a bigger risk than the typing it saves.

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What are the stages a tenancy goes through?

Vetting, then Compliance, then Awaiting tenant, then Active, then Ended — each stage unlocks the next only when its checklist is genuinely complete.

A tenancy in Tenarize moves through five statuses, and you can't skip one. The point is that the order matches the order the law expects things to happen in.

  1. Vetting — right to rent, ID, income, credit check, references, guarantor. None of these require a document upload, but each one signposts where to actually carry the check out.
  2. Compliance — gas safety, EICR, EPC, alarms, the Renters' Rights Act information sheet, Legionella, insurance, deposit protection paperwork, furniture fire safety if the let is furnished, and the HMO items if the property is let by room. Most of these do require the document.
  3. Awaiting tenant — you set the proposed start date, rent and deposit, invite the tenant to their portal, and send the agreement for signature.
  4. Active — both parties have signed. The move-in checklist appears, rent collection becomes available, and the real start date, rent and deposit are locked in.
  5. Ended — you've recorded the end date and reason. A move-out checklist is created automatically.

Completing the last item on a checklist advances the tenancy on its own — there's no separate 'submit' step.

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Can I look around before putting real tenant data in?

Yes — nothing forces you to add a real tenancy, and you can add a property, walk the checklists and delete it again without any of it touching a tenant.

You can add a property and start a tenancy against a placeholder tenant to see the whole workflow. Nothing is sent to anyone until you explicitly invite a tenant or send an agreement for signature — both are deliberate button presses, not side effects.

A tenancy can be deleted while it is still at the Vetting stage, so an exploratory one is easy to clear up afterwards. See deleting a property or tenancy.

Worth knowing: Don't use a real person's details as a placeholder. Once a tenancy leaves Vetting it can no longer be deleted until it has ended, and their data is then part of a compliance record you're expected to keep.

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Properties and portfolio

Adding properties, HMO room lets, buildings with several units, and the map.

How do I add a property?

Use New property, pick the address from Google's suggestions or press Find from address, check the map pin, then set the type, bedrooms and furnishing status.

  1. From Properties or the map, choose New property.
  2. Start typing the address. Picking a suggestion fills the address lines, postcode and map position for you, and tells Tenarize which country the property is in.
  3. Or type the address in yourself and press Find from address — Tenarize looks it up within the postcode you gave it.
  4. Check the pin on the map, and drag it if it isn't on the right building. The label under the map says how the position was arrived at — matched to the address, to the street only, or to the centre of the postcode.
  5. Set the property type, number of bedrooms, and — importantly — the furnishing status.
  6. Add licensing details if the property needs an HMO or selective licence, and any notes.

Worth knowing: A property can't be saved without a location, and Tenarize refuses a pin that sits implausibly far from its own postcode. The pin drives your map view, and the tenant portal uses the coordinates to work out which council bills the address — so a pin in the wrong place is not only cosmetic.

Worth knowing: Furnishing status is required when you create a property because it decides whether the compliance checklist includes the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988 item. Leaving it wrong quietly under-states a real legal duty.

Bedrooms matter too if you let the property room by room — see letting a property room by room.

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The postcode didn't fill in when I picked an address. What now?

Just type it in — the field is editable, and the address you picked is still used for everything else.

Google occasionally returns a UK postcode split across two parts, which used to leave the postcode field empty. That's fixed, but the field has always been editable, so if it's ever blank you can simply type it.

Worth knowing: If you hand-edit the postcode after picking a suggestion, the country information from that suggestion is deliberately discarded — a postcode you typed can't be vouched for by an address you picked earlier. The England-only check then falls back to reading the postcode itself.

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My property is in the wrong place on the map. How do I move it?

Open the property, choose Edit property, and drag the pin onto the building — or press Find from address to look it up again.

Open the property, choose Edit property, and scroll to Location on the map. Drag the pin onto the right building, or click where it should go. You can also press Find from address to look the address up again, and Enlarge map if you need a closer look before deciding.

The label under the map tells you how much to trust the current position:

  • Matched to the address — Tenarize found this specific address.
  • Matched to the street only — the right road, but not the building on it.
  • Centre of the postcode — a postcode covers around fifteen addresses, so this one is a starting point rather than an answer.
  • Placed by you — you moved it, and nothing will move it again unless you ask.

Worth knowing: Properties added before September 2026 may sit on a default position rather than a real one — the old form didn't always look the address up when it was typed in by hand rather than picked from the suggestions. If that applies, the edit form says so and offers to find it.

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Can I let a property room by room, like an HMO?

Yes — set the property's letting type to 'By room' and it will hold several concurrent tenancies, each with its own room label, agreement and rent.

Set a property's letting type to By room. A whole-property let is limited to one live tenancy at a time; a by-room property can run several at once, each with its own tenant, room label, rent, deposit, agreement and checklists.

  • Room tenancies use a different tenancy agreement template — one that grants the room plus shared use of the common parts, rather than the whole property. It isn't a variant of the standard agreement; the grant clause is genuinely different.
  • A room that already has a live tenancy can't be let again until that tenancy ends, so the same room can't be double-let by accident.
  • If you've set the number of bedrooms, Tenarize caps concurrent room tenancies at that number.
  • If you've recorded the licence's occupancy limit, Tenarize refuses a tenancy that would take the house over it — counted in people, so a couple in one room counts as two.
  • Room lets also get a longer compliance checklist: HMO licensing, the fire risk assessment, the 2006 management duties, and the statutory minimum room sizes.
  • Meter readings, the property list, the map and the property page all show per-room occupancy rather than assuming one tenant.

Worth knowing: A property let by room becomes an HMO in law once three or more people in two or more households live there sharing a kitchen, bathroom or toilet. Once the tenancies you've recorded reach that, Tenarize prompts you to check whether it needs a licence, and says so more firmly at five people, where mandatory licensing starts. It can't tell you the answer — only your council's designation can — but it won't let the question go unasked.

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How do I handle a building containing several flats?

Create the building as a container property and add each flat under it: the container holds building-wide documents, each flat is a full property.

Mark the building itself as a container property and attach each independently-let unit to it as a child. The two behave differently on purpose:

  • The container holds nothing but building-wide paperwork — a communal fire risk assessment, a block insurance policy. It never carries a tenancy of its own.
  • Each child unit is a complete property in its own right: its own address details, its own licensing, its own documents, its own tenancies and compliance checklists.

Worth knowing: You have to delete or detach the child units before the container itself can be deleted. That rule is enforced by the app rather than the database, so it won't stop you halfway.

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Does Tenarize track HMO and selective licensing?

Yes — licences are structured fields with expiry dates and status badges, not just an uploaded PDF, and you can record the specific conditions the council attached.

Operating an unlicensed HMO where a licence is required is a criminal offence, so licensing is tracked as real data rather than a file you might forget to look at.

  • Licence type, reference and expiry date are structured fields on the property.
  • Status pills appear on the property page and portfolio-wide badges on the property list, so a missing or expiring licence is visible without opening anything.
  • The licence's occupancy limit is a structured field of its own, and it's enforced: a new tenancy that would take the property over the permitted number of people is refused. It counts people rather than rooms, because that's what a licence caps.
  • A licence conditions free-text field records everything else the licensing authority attached — fire door requirements, minimum room sizes, amenity standards — which the licence's existence and expiry alone never capture. It's shown prominently on the licensing card, not buried.
  • Approaching expiry and outright absence both generate notifications.
  • If you let a property by room but haven't ticked the licensing box, Tenarize raises a prompt anyway once the tenancies you've recorded reach three or more people in separate households — the point at which it's an HMO in law, and the case where silence is most expensive. At five people it says so more firmly, because that's where mandatory licensing starts. The prompt counts people, not bedrooms: an empty five-bedroom house isn't an HMO yet, and Tenarize won't tell you it is.

Worth knowing: Whether a property needs a licence depends on your local authority's own scheme. Tenarize prompts you to check, and tracks what you tell it; it doesn't look up your council's designation for you.

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What is the map view for?

It plots your whole portfolio, plus the suppliers who cover each area, so you can see occupancy and coverage geographically instead of as a list.

The map is the landlord home screen. Every property is plotted with its occupancy and any compliance warnings, and your suppliers can be overlaid with the catchment areas they cover.

It's most useful when a portfolio is spread out — seeing at a glance which properties have no gas engineer covering them, or which cluster of flats is coming up for renewal at the same time, is hard to do from a table.

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Can I store photos of a property?

Yes — each property has a photo gallery you can reorder, and one photo can be set as the banner image for the property page.

Every property has its own photo gallery. You can upload as many as you like, drag them into the order you want, and set one as the primary banner photo for the property page.

Worth knowing: If you delete the photo currently set as the banner, the banner simply clears rather than pointing at a missing file.

Room-by-room condition photos belong somewhere else — see the walkthrough tool, which keeps them attached to the inventory report rather than loose in the gallery.

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How do I delete a property or a tenancy?

Both use a 30-day deferred deletion — you confirm, everything locks, documents stay downloadable, and it goes for good after 30 days unless you cancel.

Deletion is deliberately slow, because a landlord is expected to be able to produce historical compliance and vetting records if they're ever challenged.

  • A tenancy can only be deleted while it is at Vetting or after it has Ended — never mid-tenancy. Requesting deletion zips every document on that tenancy, emails the tenant a link to download their copy, and locks the tenancy so nothing can change underneath it.
  • A property can only be deleted once no tenancy references it at all, and — for a building container — once its child units are gone.
  • Both are then permanently deleted 30 days later by a background job, along with their files.

You can cancel a scheduled deletion at any point in that window. For a tenancy, cancelling also deletes the stored zip and emails the tenant to say the old link no longer works. A property can also be deleted immediately with Delete now if you don't want to wait — that option isn't offered for a tenancy, because there's a tenant on the other end who may still need their download link.

Everything currently in the grace period is listed together on the Pending deletions page, reachable from a banner on the map.

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Tenants and vetting

Your tenant database, the vetting checklist, and inviting a tenant to their portal.

What's on the vetting checklist?

Right to Rent, proof of identity, proof of income, a credit check, a previous landlord reference and guarantor details — each with an optional document upload.

Six items, all landlord-only — your tenant never sees this checklist.

  • Right to Rent check completed — verifying immigration status under the Immigration Act 2014.
  • Proof of identity verified — passport or driving licence checked against the applicant.
  • Proof of income / employment verified — payslips, an employer reference, an accountant's letter for the self-employed, or an award letter where any of the income is benefits.
  • Credit check completed.
  • Previous landlord reference obtained.
  • Guarantor details obtained (if applicable).

None of them force a document upload, because not every check produces paperwork worth keeping — a reference taken over the phone, for instance. Each one offers an optional upload if it does. Each item also explains the duty behind it and points you at where to actually carry the check out.

Worth knowing: Count income from benefits the same way as any other income. GOV.UK's rental discrimination guidance requires it, and since 1 May 2026 an income rule that only counts earnings is the kind of criterion sections 33 and 34 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 are about — a local council can impose a penalty of up to £7,000. The same goes for a referencing company applying its own criteria on your behalf. Tenarize records what you checked and when; the affordability judgement is yours.

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How does Tenarize handle Right to Rent follow-up checks?

Record the follow-up date for a tenant with time-limited immigration status and you'll be reminded before it falls due, so you don't lose your statutory excuse.

Where a tenant's right to rent is time-limited, the law expects a follow-up check. Missing it is how a landlord loses the statutory excuse that protects them from a penalty.

Set the follow-up date on the tenancy and Tenarize raises a notification before it's due, with a link straight to the tenancy where you can record the re-check.

Worth knowing: Tenarize reminds you to do the check. It doesn't do the check — that's still a gov.uk Right to Rent verification, or a share code, carried out by you.

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How do I invite a tenant to their portal?

Once compliance is complete, use Invite on the tenancy — Tenarize emails the tenant a one-time code and link, and they set their own password.

Invites go out once a tenancy reaches Awaiting tenant, because before that there's nothing for the tenant to look at. Pressing Invite generates a one-time code and emails the tenant a link that takes them straight to the sign-up page with the code applied.

  • The tenant sets their own password. You never see it, and you never set one on their behalf.
  • Invite codes expire after 14 days. An expired one gives a clear 'ask your landlord for a new one' message rather than looking broken — reissue it and a fresh email goes out.
  • If the tenant already has a portal account — a renewal, say — no new invite is needed.

A tenant doesn't strictly need a portal account for the tenancy to run, but they do need one to e-sign, to pay rent through Tenarize, or to report maintenance in the app.

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My tenant has lost access to their portal account. What do I do?

Point them at 'Forgot password' first; if the email address itself is wrong or gone, use 'Reset portal account' to clear the old login and issue a fresh invite.

Try the simple route first: the tenant login page has a Forgot password link that emails them a reset. That handles most cases and doesn't need you at all.

If the problem is the email address itself — they've lost access to the mailbox, or it was recorded wrong — use Reset portal account, available from your tenant database and from a link on the tenant's own tenancy page. It deletes the old login, unlinks it from the tenant record, and issues a fresh invite code, which is emailed out automatically.

Worth knowing: Both changing a tenant's email address and resetting their portal account are written to the tenancy audit trail and emailed to the tenant, so there's always a record of who moved their account and when.

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Can I give tenants a different contact address instead of my personal one?

Yes — set a tenant-facing contact name, email and phone on your profile and that's what tenants see and what tenant-facing emails point at.

Your profile has an optional tenant-facing contact block — name, email and phone. Setting the contact email switches tenants over to it, so your personal address stays out of the tenant portal and out of the emails Tenarize sends them.

This is worth doing if you're letting through a limited company, using a managing contact, or simply don't want your personal mobile number in a tenant's phone forever.

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What can my tenant actually see about their tenancy?

Their tenancy details, documents, meter readings, rent history and inventory report — never your vetting records, notes, repair costs or landlord-only files.

Tenants see a deliberately narrow slice, and the restriction is enforced on the server, not by hiding things in the interface.

  • They can see — their tenancy's status and terms, documents relevant to them (safety certificates, the agreement, the inventory report), meter readings, their rent payment history, and any maintenance requests on their tenancy.
  • They cannot see — the vetting checklist and everything on it, any document marked landlord-only, your private notes, your supplier database, what a repair cost you, or any invoice you've attached to a maintenance request.

Worth knowing: Repair costs and invoices are stripped out of tenant responses on the server before they're ever sent, rather than simply not rendered. A tenant can't retrieve them by any route.

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Compliance and certificates

The compliance checklist, safety certificates, expiry reminders and what each duty actually is.

What's on the compliance checklist?

Ten items: gas safety, EICR, EPC, alarms, the information sheet, Legionella, insurance, deposit paperwork and the agreement — plus six more for a room in an HMO.

Every tenancy gets the same ten-item compliance checklist, with two conditional additions:

  • Gas Safety Certificate (CP12) — annually where there are gas appliances. Only a Gas Safe registered engineer can carry out the check.
  • Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) — at least every five years.
  • Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) — valid ten years, minimum rating E.
  • Smoke alarm(s) fitted — at least one on every storey used as living accommodation.
  • Carbon monoxide alarm(s) fitted — in any room with a fixed combustion appliance other than a gas cooker.
  • Renters' Rights Act Information Sheet provided — given to the tenant before the tenancy is agreed. On an imported tenancy this item is reworded: the deadline for tenants on existing tenancies was 31 May 2026.
  • Legionella risk assessment completed — best-practice check of the water systems, per HSE guidance.
  • Landlord insurance in place — not a legal requirement, but usually a mortgage condition, and ordinary home insurance rarely covers a let property.
  • Deposit protection certificate — confirming you have the scheme's prescribed information ready.
  • Tenancy agreement drafted.
  • Furniture meets fire safety regulations — added automatically when the property is furnished or part-furnished.

A property let room by room is a house in multiple occupation, and picks up six further items that a single let never needs:

  • HMO licence in force — confirming the licence covers this letting, including its occupancy limit and the rooms it permits.
  • Fire risk assessment completed — required for the common parts under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, and recorded in writing since October 2023.
  • Manager's contact details displayed and given to occupiers — regulation 3 of the Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation (England) Regulations 2006. Tenarize puts these in the room-only agreement; the item confirms the notice is up in the house too.
  • Escape routes and fire precautions checked — regulation 4 of the same Regulations.
  • Common parts, water supply and waste checked — regulations 5, 7 and 9.
  • Room sizes meet the statutory minimum — the 2018 Mandatory Conditions Regulations set minimum sleeping-room floor areas where a mandatory licence applies.

Most of these require the document to be attached before the item can be ticked. Legionella, the furniture check and the HMO management items don't, because none of them usually produces a formal certificate — the fire risk assessment does, and is document-gated.

Worth knowing: The alarm items here confirm alarms are *fitted*. Testing them with the tenant present on the day the tenancy starts is a separate legal duty, and it's tracked separately on the move-in checklist.

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Will Tenarize tell me when a certificate is about to expire?

Yes — record the expiry date on a document and you'll get an in-app notification and an email before it lapses, with a link straight to the property.

Every document can carry an expiry date. Tenarize scans for approaching and passed expiries and raises a notification against the property or tenancy it belongs to, with a link that takes you straight to where you can act on it.

A date you skipped or mistyped can be put right later, without re-uploading the file. Every document row — on the property page, in a tenancy's compliance checklist, and in your landlord-only documents — carries an Add expiry date link, which reads Edit expiry date once there's one to change. A document with no expiry date is never chased, so it's the one field worth going back for.

Compliance-flavoured notifications also trigger an email the moment they're first raised, rather than waiting for you to notice the bell. Anything still outstanding is repeated in a weekly digest email on Monday mornings. Both are switchable under Preferences — the tracking carries on either way, but with the emails off the app is the only place an expiry will appear. See choosing which emails you get.

The same applies to licences and to supplier certifications — see supplier certifications.

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How do I replace a certificate that's expired mid-tenancy?

Upload the new one to the same checklist item or property document — the old version is archived rather than deleted, so your history stays intact.

You don't need to wait for a renewal or start anything new. Upload the replacement against the same item from the property page or the tenancy's compliance checklist at any point.

The previous document is archived, not deleted — it's marked as superseded and stays visible under document history. That matters: if you're ever asked to show the property had a valid gas certificate in a particular month, you need the old one as much as the current one.

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What happens if my EPC is rated F or G?

Tenarize flags a 'letting may be unlawful' badge wherever that EPC appears — letting below the minimum E rating without an exemption breaches MEES.

Record the EPC rating alongside the certificate and Tenarize will flag an F or G rating with a warning badge everywhere that document appears.

Under the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards, letting a property rated below E without a registered exemption is unlawful and can attract a fine. The badge is a prompt to either improve the rating or register an exemption — Tenarize doesn't decide which applies to you.

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How does Tenarize help with deposit protection?

Both duties — protecting the money and giving the prescribed information — share one 30-day deadline, and Tenarize warns if an outstanding one blocks possession.

Protecting a deposit is two duties, not one, and treating it as one is the classic way to end up in breach while believing you're compliant:

  • The money has to reach one of the government-approved schemes.
  • The tenant has to be given the scheme's prescribed information, in the prescribed form. If someone else paid the deposit on their behalf — a parent or a guarantor — they have to be given it too.

Both run to the same deadline: 30 days from receiving the deposit, counting the day you receive it as day one. Each carries its own penalty, so protecting the money and never sending the information is a full breach rather than a technicality.

The Deposit Protection card on an active tenancy records all of it — the date received, the scheme, the reference, the date protected, the date the information was given, and anyone else it had to go to. Tenarize measures both against the deadline, reminds you before it falls due and names which of the two is still outstanding, and reports Done late (breach) rather than a plain 'complete' if either slipped.

It also warns you where it matters most. Since 1 May 2026 a court cannot make a possession order on any ground except Ground 7A or Ground 14 while a deposit duty is outstanding — so if you record a Section 8 notice on a tenancy whose deposit isn't fully dealt with, Tenarize says so on the notice form rather than letting you find out at the hearing.

Worth knowing: The compliance checklist's 'Deposit protection certificate' item is a different thing again — it confirms you have the scheme's information ready before the tenancy starts. Ticking it is not protecting the deposit. There's also a cap on how much you can take — see the deposit cap.

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Is there a limit on how much deposit I can take?

Yes — five weeks' rent, or six if the annual rent is £50,000 or more, and Tenarize rejects tenancy terms that exceed it rather than just warning you.

The Tenant Fees Act 2019 caps a tenancy deposit at five weeks' rent, rising to six weeks where the annual rent is £50,000 or more.

When you set the tenancy terms, Tenarize calculates the cap from the rent you've entered and refuses to save a deposit above it. That check runs on the server, so it applies however the terms are submitted — it isn't a client-side warning you can click past.

Worth knowing: Changing the rent later can bring an already-stored deposit above the cap. Tenarize re-checks the pair together, so a rent reduction that would break the cap is rejected too.

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Can I keep some documents private from my tenant?

Yes — mark a document landlord-only and it is excluded from every tenant-facing response on the server, not merely hidden in their interface.

Any document can be marked landlord-only. Mortgage paperwork, correspondence with a solicitor, vetting evidence and your own notes all belong in that category.

The flag is applied when documents are fetched from the database, so a landlord-only document is never included in a response to a tenant request in the first place. Walkthrough room photos are always landlord-only automatically — the tenant only ever sees the finished inventory report.

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Tenancy agreements and e-signature

Generating, previewing and editing the agreement, signing order, change requests and using your own document.

How does the tenancy agreement work?

Tenarize generates a PDF from a maintained template plus the details you've entered, then sends it for e-signature — you sign first, then your tenant.

Once a tenancy reaches Awaiting tenant and the terms are set, the whole agreement is shown on the tenancy page with your details filled in. You can read every clause, edit any of them, and Preview PDF to see the exact document before Generate and send builds it from the master template, the optional clauses you've chosen, any wording you've changed, and any free-text addendum you've added.

  1. The document goes out for signature. You sign first, then your tenant — the order is fixed.
  2. Your tenant is emailed the moment your signature lands and it becomes their turn.
  3. When both signatures are in, the executed PDF is stored against the tenancy, the status flips to Active, the start date, rent and deposit are finalised, and the move-in checklist appears.

Both the draft and the fully-executed PDF are kept as separate documents, so there's a record of exactly what was sent as well as what was signed.

Worth knowing: The agreement is an assured periodic tenancy, not an assured shorthold tenancy. ASTs were abolished by the Renters' Rights Act from 1 May 2026, and there is deliberately no fixed-term or length field anywhere in Tenarize.

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Has the tenancy agreement been checked by a solicitor?

No. It is generated from a template written against reference material, it carries that disclaimer on its own face, and it is used at your own risk.

The generated agreement is not solicitor-reviewed for your specific tenancy, and it doesn't pretend otherwise — a disclaimer appears on page one and again at the signature block, stating that the document is produced automatically from a template and the details entered, and is used entirely at the reader's own risk.

The clauses were written as original prose against reference material — a model periodic tenancy template and the applicable Written Statement regulations — for topic coverage. They are kept current with English law as it changes, but that is not the same thing as advice about your circumstances.

If your letting is unusual — a company let, a lease with restrictive covenants, an arrangement with a guarantor structure you've been advised on — have a solicitor look at it, or use your own agreement instead.

Worth knowing: Nothing in Tenarize, including this FAQ, is legal advice.

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Can I change what's in the tenancy agreement?

Yes — you can read the whole agreement before sending, rewrite or remove any clause, and add an addendum. Only the disclaimer and signature block are fixed.

Before sending, the full agreement is shown clause by clause with this tenancy's names, address, rent and dates filled in. Any clause can be edited — heading and wording — or cleared to remove it, and Reset to standard wording puts it back. Preview PDF shows the exact document that will be sent. You can also choose which optional clauses to include and add a free-text addendum.

Two things can't be edited: the disclaimer at the top, and the signature block at the end, which is what the e-signing service places the signature fields on.

Some clauses are marked States the law — the deposit, rent increases, pets, children living at the property, ending the tenancy, the written statement of terms, late payment interest and your repairing duties among them. You can still edit them, but you'll see what the law says while you do, and you'll need to confirm you understand before sending. The law applies whatever the agreement says, and a term that contradicts it may be unenforceable or a breach in itself.

If you change any clause, the agreement tells your tenant which ones were changed from Tenarize's standard wording and that Tenarize hasn't reviewed them.

Some clauses appear conditionally rather than by choice. A late payment of rent clause is always rendered, worded to match whatever interest rate you've configured (or to say plainly that no interest applies). A shared-building clause covering common parts and superior-lease obligations appears only for property types that genuinely sit inside a larger building.

The clause selections, any wording you changed, and the addendum text are stored against the signature request itself, so the record of what was sent survives even after the template is later updated.

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How do I record that the rent includes some or all of the bills?

Tick them under Bills included in the rent — the agreement is then worded to say so, and your tenant's portal stops telling them to open those accounts.

Bills included in the rent sits with the other tenancy terms, and offers council tax, gas, electricity, water and sewerage, broadband or phone, and the TV licence. Leave them all unticked — the default — and the tenant arranges and pays everything themselves.

Whatever you tick changes two clauses of the generated agreement: the tenant's payment obligation, and the statutory written statement of terms. Both then name the bills the rent covers and state that you'll be paying them, instead of the default wording that makes every bill the tenant's own to arrange.

It also drives the Local services section of your tenant's portal, which otherwise points them at their council and their water company to set those accounts up. Anything you've said is included is dropped from that list, so they aren't told to open an account you already hold.

You can change it mid-tenancy from the tenancy page. That records the arrangement as it now stands — it doesn't alter an agreement that has already been signed, which stays as the document both parties put their names to.

Worth knowing: Letting by room? Council tax isn't offered as a choice there. Where each occupier has a tenancy of only part of the property it's a house in multiple occupation for council tax purposes and you're liable as owner, so the room agreement says that outright and your tenant is told the same.

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My tenant has asked for a change to the agreement. What happens?

Their request appears on the tenancy page; you edit the agreement and re-send, which automatically revokes the old document.

Before signing, a tenant can raise a free-text change request against a pending agreement rather than being forced to either sign or decline. You're emailed and it appears on the tenancy page.

Accepting a request doesn't edit the document by itself — it's a prompt for you to change the wording, toggle a clause or amend the addendum and send it again, using Re-send updated agreement (the same button, relabelled once a document is already out for signature). The editor starts from what you last sent, so earlier changes don't have to be redone. Re-sending automatically supersedes and revokes the old envelope, so there is never more than one live document to sign.

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My tenant declined the agreement, or has never signed it. How do I unstick the tenancy?

Tenarize chases whoever hasn't signed, weekly for four weeks. After that, 'Cancel and return to compliance checklist' revokes it and puts the tenancy back a stage.

First, you don't have to chase it yourself. While a document is out for signature, Tenarize emails whoever it's waiting on once a week — you, until you've signed, then your tenant. That runs for four weeks and then stops. A decline ends it straight away: nobody is chased for a signature they've refused.

Your tenant is chased either way. Your own half of that is switchable under Preferences if you'd rather not be nudged — see choosing which emails you get.

A tenancy parked at Awaiting tenant can't be deleted — deletion is only available at Vetting or after the tenancy has ended — so there's a dedicated way out.

The action is Cancel and return to compliance checklist, shown on the tenancy while it's awaiting the tenant. It puts the tenancy back to the Compliance stage and revokes any open signature request. Re-completing the checklist advances it forward again naturally, at which point you can change the terms, invite a different tenant, or send a revised agreement.

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Can I use my own tenancy agreement instead of the generated one?

Yes — 'Activate with your own signed agreement' takes your existing signed document, activates the tenancy directly and skips the e-signature flow entirely.

Nothing forces you to use Tenarize's template. Next to Generate and send there's Or activate with your own signed agreement.

  • You attach the signed agreement you already have and explicitly confirm it has been signed by both parties.
  • The tenancy goes Active immediately — the same start date finalisation and move-in checklist creation as the e-signature route, sharing exactly the same code so the two paths can't drift apart.
  • For an imported tenancy, the document comes from the compliance checklist's 'Tenancy agreement drafted' item instead, which stays document-gated for imports.

Worth knowing: This route skips Tenarize's own dual-signature audit trail — there's no record of who signed what and when, because Tenarize never saw it happen. The modal says so before you proceed, and the late-payment charge section will warn you that Tenarize can't vouch for what your own agreement says about interest.

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Is there a different agreement for a room in an HMO?

Yes — a room let uses a separate template that grants the room plus shared use of the common parts, rather than the whole property.

When a property's letting type is By room, Tenarize generates a different document, not a variant of the standard one. The grant clause is scoped to the room and the shared common parts, and the obligations around communal areas are written accordingly.

It also carries three things the whole-property agreement has no reason to:

  • A house in multiple occupation clause naming the manager and their contact details, the licence and its occupancy limit, and the landlord's duties under the Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation (England) Regulations 2006.
  • Fire safety obligations on the tenant — keeping escape routes clear, and not interfering with fire doors, alarms, emergency lighting or extinguishers.
  • Council tax handled correctly for a room let. Where each occupier has a tenancy of only part of the property, it's an HMO for council tax and the *owner* is liable, not the tenant. The room-only agreement says so rather than telling the tenant to open an account they can't open.

Everything else works the same way — preview and clause editing, optional clauses, addendum, landlord-then-tenant signing, and the same disclaimer.

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Move-in, inventory and inspections

The move-in checklist, the room-by-room walkthrough tool, meter readings and periodic inspections.

What's on the move-in checklist?

Deposit received, inventory completed and signed, meter readings, smoke and CO alarms tested, a full property tour, and keys handed over.

The move-in checklist is created automatically the moment a tenancy goes Active. It records the physical move-in, as opposed to the paperwork that came before it.

  • Deposit received — after which the 30-day protection clock starts.
  • Property inventory completed — a full condition report, signed by both parties.
  • Meter readings recorded — electricity, gas and water, with serial numbers and photos.
  • Smoke alarm(s) tested and Carbon monoxide alarm(s) tested — with the tenant present. This is the actual legal duty; the compliance checklist only confirmed the alarms were fitted.
  • Full property tour completed — boiler, stopcock, fuse box and anything else they'll need.
  • Keys handed over.

Worth knowing: Imported tenancies don't get a move-in checklist. The move-in happened before Tenarize was involved, and generating one would imply Tenarize checked something it never saw.

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What is the room-by-room walkthrough tool?

A phone-friendly tool for building an inventory or inspection room by room — add rooms, photos and notes, and it generates the report PDF at the end.

Rather than producing an inventory in some other app and uploading it, you can walk the property with your phone and build it as you go. The walkthrough screen is deliberately full-screen with no sidebar, so it's usable one-handed.

  1. Add a room, write notes on its condition, and add up to eight photos — the photo picker opens the camera directly on a phone.
  2. Repeat for each room. Everything is saved as you go, so Save & exit lets you stop part-way through and pick the walkthrough up again later from the tenancy page — nothing is finalised until you finish.
  3. Press Finish and Tenarize generates a report PDF, attaches it to the right checklist item, and — for a move-in or check-out inventory — sends it to you and your tenant for e-signature.

It works for three things: the move-in inventory, the check-out inventory, and a periodic inspection. A check-out walkthrough automatically pulls in the move-in report as a baseline and shows matched rooms side by side, before and after.

If you'd rather see the output than read about it, there are example reports you can download.

Worth knowing: The manual route still exists everywhere the walkthrough does — if you'd rather upload one flat document, nothing stops you. The walkthrough is offered alongside it, never instead of it.

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What does the inventory report actually look like?

Three sample PDFs you can download — a move-in inventory, a check-out comparison and an inspection report, all produced by the template your own reports use.

These are real output rather than mock-ups. Each one comes off the same template that generates your own reports, filled in with invented details for a made-up two-bedroom flat, and stamped EXAMPLE on every page.

  • Move-in inventory — five rooms, eight photographs, and the signature block both you and your tenant sign.
  • Check-out inventory — the same flat a year later, with every room set side by side against how it was recorded at move-in.
  • Inspection report — a routine mid-tenancy inspection. This one is yours alone: it is never sent to the tenant for signature.

Each report opens on a cover page carrying the full address, both parties, the date, how many rooms and photographs it contains and a reference you can quote. After that comes one numbered section per room, with its condition notes and its photographs, each photograph numbered so it can be referred to later — "photo 2.3" means the third photograph of room two.

Every page is numbered and carries the report type, the property and the date along the bottom, so a single page separated from the rest of a bundle still says what it belongs to.

Worth knowing: The watermark is the only difference between these and the real thing. Your own reports are not watermarked, and nothing else about them changes — so what you can see here is what your tenant receives.

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How does the inventory get signed by both parties?

A walkthrough-generated report goes through the same e-signature flow as the agreement; a manually uploaded one uses a simpler in-app dual sign-off.

It depends on where the document came from, and the difference is technical rather than arbitrary:

  • Generated by the walkthrough tool — sent for proper e-signature, landlord then tenant, exactly like the tenancy agreement. Tenarize controls that PDF, so it can place real signature fields in it.
  • Uploaded manually — uses the older in-app dual sign-off, where each party confirms in the portal. An arbitrary uploaded file can't reliably carry signature fields, so this path is kept unchanged.

Either way your tenant is emailed when it's their turn, and the fully-signed version replaces the draft on the checklist item.

On the e-signature path, an unsigned report is chased for you: one email a week to whoever it's waiting on — you first, then your tenant — for four weeks, then it stops. The manual sign-off isn't chased. Your tenant's nudges always go; your own can be switched off under Preferences (see choosing which emails you get).

Worth knowing: If your tenant hasn't claimed their portal account yet, e-signature quietly isn't attempted and the report falls back to the manual sign-off. Nothing errors and nothing is lost.

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My tenant disagrees with the inventory report. What are my options?

Their query appears on the tenancy page, and you either dismiss it with a written response or edit the report and re-send it for signature.

A tenant reviewing a pending inventory report can raise a structured query rather than only being able to sign or decline. They can point it at the report generally or at one named room.

  • Dismiss — you must write a response explaining why. The tenant is emailed it. The document is unchanged.
  • Edit and re-send — this reopens the walkthrough, unlocks the room notes for editing, and revokes the outstanding signature request. When you finish it again, the PDF is regenerated and sent afresh to both of you, and the query is marked resolved with an optional note.

Worth knowing: A query can only be marked resolved as a side effect of actually re-sending a corrected report — there's no button to mark it resolved without having changed anything.

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Can I record periodic inspections?

Yes — either as a quick dated log with notes and files, or as a full room-by-room walkthrough that produces an inspection report PDF.

Inspections are landlord-only records of a property visit, attached to the tenancy. There are two ways to log one:

  • The original quick log — a date, free-text notes and any files you want to attach.
  • A walkthrough of type Inspection, which produces a proper room-by-room report PDF.

Set an inspection interval on the tenancy and Tenarize will remind you when the next one falls due. An inspection report is never sent for signature — it's yours.

You can also book the next inspection ahead of time, which tells your tenant when you're coming — see booking an inspection. Logging the inspection afterwards marks that booking as done.

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How do I let my tenant know when I'm coming to inspect?

Book the inspection on the tenancy page. Your tenant is emailed the time with a calendar invite, reminded two days before, and can ask you for another time.

In the Inspections section of the tenancy page, choose a date and a time window. Once an inspection interval is set and the next one is due within 14 days, or overdue, the section prompts you to do this, with the date already filled in.

  • Your tenant is emailed the time with a calendar invite, sees it on their tenancy page, and gets a reminder email two days before.
  • You get the same calendar invite, and the booking replaces the "inspection due" reminder.
  • Moving it — including a day earlier or later with one press — emails your tenant the new time, and the event in their calendar moves with it. Cancelling sends them a cancellation.

Tenarize won't book or move an inspection to less than 24 hours away, or outside 8am to 8pm. Unlike a repair, an inspection is never urgent, so the app holds every booking to that.

If the time doesn't suit, your tenant can ask for another from their tenancy page, with a message saying what would work. You're emailed and see it on the tenancy. Their request doesn't move anything by itself: you decide, and moving the booking answers it.

Worth knowing: The email and invite tell your tenant when you're coming. Whether they count as the written notice your tenancy or the law requires depends on your circumstances, and Tenarize doesn't decide that for you. What you record during the visit — notes, photos, the report — stays private to you.

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Can I record meter readings?

Yes — electricity, gas and water readings with serial numbers and photo evidence, tied to both the property and the tenancy, and visible to your tenant.

Meter readings sit against both the property and the specific tenancy, so a reading taken at move-in stays associated with the right tenant even after several lettings.

Record the reading, the meter serial number and a photo of the meter itself. Readings are visible to your tenant read-only — which is the point, since a disputed opening reading is a common source of friction with an energy supplier.

On a room-by-room property, readings are shown per tenancy rather than collapsed into one.

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Ending or renewing a tenancy

Section 8 grounds, serving notice, the move-out checklist, deposit return and renewals.

Can I still serve a Section 21 no-fault eviction notice?

No. Section 21 was abolished entirely by the Renters' Rights Act from 1 May 2026, for new and existing tenancies alike, and Tenarize does not offer it.

Section 21 no longer exists as a route for any tenancy. Section 8, using statutory grounds, is the only landlord-initiated way to end an assured periodic tenancy.

Tenarize reflects that: 'Landlord notice (Section 21)' is not selectable as an end reason. Tenancies that ended under it before abolition keep a legacy label rather than being silently reinterpreted as something else.

Worth knowing: This is a description of the law as Tenarize implements it, not legal advice about your situation.

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How does Tenarize handle Section 8 grounds and notice periods?

It lists the sixteen grounds relevant to a private landlord with their statutory notice periods, and suggests the earliest valid expiry date.

When you record a notice, you select the Section 8 grounds you're relying on from a list of sixteen relevant to an ordinary private residential landlord. Each carries its statutory minimum notice period.

Tenarize calculates the earliest valid notice expiry date from the grounds you've selected and pre-fills it. You can overwrite that date — the same field also records a tenant's own notice to quit or a court order, where the Section 8 periods don't apply — but if what you enter is shorter than the minimum for a ground you've cited, Tenarize tells you which ground and what the earliest valid date would be. It won't stop you saving it.

A Notice card records a served notice independently of actually ending the tenancy, and drives a reminder if the tenant hasn't left by the expiry date.

Tenarize also warns you about the other way a possession claim fails on paperwork. Since 1 May 2026 a court cannot make a possession order on any ground except Ground 7A or Ground 14 while a tenancy deposit duty is outstanding — the money not in a scheme, or the prescribed information never given. If that's the position on the tenancy, the warning appears on the notice form, next to the notice-period one. See deposit protection.

Worth knowing: Choosing the right ground and serving notice correctly is a legal decision with real consequences if you get it wrong. Tenarize records what you've done and reminds you about dates; it does not advise you on which ground applies.

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How do I end a tenancy?

Use End tenancy on the active tenancy, record the actual end date, reason and any notes, and a move-out checklist is created automatically.

  1. Open the active tenancy and choose End tenancy.
  2. Record the actual end date, the reason, any notes, and the Section 8 grounds if the tenancy is ending on a notice you served.
  3. The tenancy status becomes Ended and a move-out checklist is created: check-out inventory, final meter readings, keys returned, forwarding address obtained.
  4. Complete the check-out inventory — either by uploading one or by running a check-out walkthrough, which pulls in the move-in report as a baseline for a side-by-side comparison.
  5. Record the deposit return once it's settled.

Ending a tenancy also stops rent being chargeable through Tenarize — the server refuses a rent charge against a tenancy that isn't Active.

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Does Tenarize track returning the deposit?

Yes — record the date returned, the amount and any deductions, and you'll be reminded if a return looks overdue.

The tenancy carries deposit return fields alongside the protection fields: the date returned, the amount, and a record of any deductions. If a return looks overdue after the tenancy has ended, you'll get a reminder.

Where you're deducting for damage, the check-out inventory is the evidence — which is why the check-out walkthrough puts the move-in and move-out photographs of each room next to each other in one report.

For a full picture of what happened and when, the tenancy audit trail exports as a PDF you can take to a scheme adjudication.

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How do I renew a tenancy with the same tenant?

Use Renew — it ends the current tenancy, creates a linked new one that skips re-vetting, and carries forward the compliance documents that are still valid.

Renew tenancy on an active tenancy ends the current one with a reason of 'Renewed' and creates a fresh, linked tenancy. The chain between them is kept, so the history is traceable.

  • Vetting is skipped — you already vetted this tenant.
  • Compliance documents that are still valid are carried forward as independent copies, so replacing one later doesn't reach back into the old tenancy's records.
  • The deposit protection record carries forward — the scheme, the reference and both dates. A deposit that stays in the same scheme across a replacement tenancy is treated as already protected for the new one, so the renewed tenancy shows the protection you already have rather than asking for it again.
  • No move-out checklist is created for the tenancy being renewed — nobody is moving out.
  • The new tenancy still needs its own terms and its own fresh agreement, signed again. That isn't a formality; it's a new tenancy.

Worth knowing: An imported tenancy that you renew produces an ordinary, non-imported tenancy. The renewal itself happened inside Tenarize, so the import flag isn't carried forward.

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Collecting rent

Direct Debit setup, automatic monthly collection, arrears, late-payment interest and reversals.

How does rent collection work?

Rent is collected by Bacs Direct Debit into your own Stripe account — you connect a payout account once, your tenant authorises a mandate once.

Three one-off setup steps, then it runs:

  1. You connect a payout account. Tenarize creates a Stripe account in your name, and Stripe's own onboarding opens inside the app to collect your identity or company details and the bank account you want rent paid into.
  2. Your tenant authorises a Direct Debit. From their portal they're sent to Stripe's own hosted page to enter their sort code and account number and set up a Bacs Direct Debit mandate under the Direct Debit Guarantee.
  3. Rent is charged — either by your tenant pressing 'Pay rent now', or automatically each month if they've switched auto-pay on.

The charge is created directly on your own Stripe account. You are the merchant of record, the money settles into your balance and pays out to your bank on Stripe's schedule. Tenarize takes no percentage of rent.

Worth knowing: Rent collection also needs an active Tenarize plan — see what a lapsed subscription does.

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What does Tenarize charge me to collect rent?

Nothing beyond your subscription. Stripe bills you its own Bacs processing fee directly, and Tenarize takes no cut of the rent.

Tenarize does not take a percentage of rent. Your subscription is the whole of what you pay Tenarize.

Because the charge is created on your own Stripe account, Stripe bills you its Bacs Direct Debit fee directly, the same way it would any other merchant. That fee comes out on Stripe's side, not through Tenarize, and it appears on your own Stripe statement.

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What details do I have to give to set up rent collection?

Enough for Stripe to verify you: name, date of birth, address, phone and email as an individual, or company details plus every director and 25%-plus owner.

Stripe has to verify whoever is receiving money, and asks for it directly — its onboarding runs inside the Tenarize payments page, but the answers go to Stripe. What it takes depends on how you let:

  • As an individual — your name, date of birth, home address, phone number and email, plus the bank account for payouts.
  • As a company — the company's registered details including its Companies House number, plus a representative and every director, every owner of 25% or more, and every senior executive as named people with their own dates of birth and addresses.

Stripe may also ask for a document — a passport or driving licence — where it can't verify someone from those details alone. Anything still outstanding is shown in the same place, so you can see exactly what's blocking you.

Stripe also asks a few questions about the letting itself rather than about you. Tenarize answers most of those before you get there — the business category, a description of what you do, and the support email and phone number from your account — which leaves the business website. That one is yours to answer, and there's an answer for not having one.

Worth knowing: You accept Stripe's Connected Account Agreement yourself as part of this, rather than Tenarize accepting it for you.

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Stripe is asking for a business website and I haven't got one. What do I put?

You don't need a website of your own — a property advert or a Facebook page will do. It's the only box in that section Tenarize can't fill in for you.

A website of your own is not required. Stripe asks because it verifies businesses of every kind, and what it is really checking is that the business it is approving exists. Anything public that shows your letting does will do:

  • An advert for the property — an OpenRent, Rightmove or Zoopla listing.
  • A social media page, if you keep one for your lettings.
  • Your own website or your agent's, if there is one.

Everything else Stripe asks about the business, Tenarize has already answered for you: the business category, a description of what you do, and your support email and phone number. The website is the one it deliberately leaves blank — filling it in with tenarize.com would tell Stripe that this site is your business, which isn't true, and Stripe checks what it's given.

Worth knowing: Use a page that actually relates to the person or company being verified. Stripe may look at whatever you give it, so a placeholder link is likelier to hold your verification up than a modest one.

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How long does a rent payment take to arrive?

Up to 7 business days to confirm the first payment on a new mandate, around 4 after that — a payment showing as pending is normal, not broken.

Bacs Direct Debit is not instant. Stripe confirms success or failure in up to 7 business days when a mandate has just been collected, and around 4 business days once the mandate is already active. Payout to your bank then follows Stripe's own schedule.

During that window the payment shows as Processing, and Tenarize treats the month as paid so nothing double-charges and no arrears entry appears. A notice on the tenancy page reminds you of the timing whenever a tenant has a mandate linked.

Worth knowing: A brand-new mandate also needs 2–3 business days to be lodged with the tenant's bank. A collection attempted inside that window can fail against a mandate that is otherwise perfectly good.

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Can rent be collected automatically every month?

Yes — set the rent due day on the tenancy and your tenant switches auto-pay on from their portal; Tenarize then charges the rent on that day each month.

You set the rent due day on the tenancy — either when you set the terms, or at any time afterwards if it needs correcting. Your tenant then switches auto-pay on themselves from their portal.

Auto-pay is the tenant's decision, not yours, because they own the Direct Debit mandate. Once it's on, a daily sweep charges each due tenancy on its due day.

  • A tenant can still press Pay rent now with auto-pay on — Tenarize checks whether the month has already been paid rather than the source of the payment, so nobody is double-charged.
  • A failed attempt schedules an automatic retry four days later, then another four days after that. Only once those are exhausted does the month count as a real failure.
  • Two failed months in a row switches auto-pay off and emails both of you. It switches back on automatically if the tenant then links working bank details.
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How do I change the rent on a tenancy that's already running?

Record the new rent and the date it starts, on the tenancy. Tenarize collects the old amount until that date and the new one from it — you serve the notice yourself.

On an active tenancy, open Rent and choose Change the rent. Enter the new monthly amount and the date it starts. You can also record the date you served the notice, which keeps it with the tenancy rather than in a folder somewhere.

The date is the point of it. Nothing changes until then: rent collected before the date is the old amount, rent collected on or after it is the new one. A change you schedule months ahead simply sits there until its day.

  • Your tenant sees the new amount and the date it starts on their own tenancy page, so they aren't relying on remembering a letter.
  • A scheduled change can be cancelled any time before it takes effect. Once it's in force it stays on the record — a further change is how you move the rent again.
  • Both the change and any cancellation are written to the tenancy's audit trail, with the old figure, the new figure and the dates.
  • Rent can go down as well as up. A tribunal can determine a lower figure than the one proposed.

Worth knowing: Serve the notice first, then record it here. On an assured periodic tenancy a rent increase normally goes through the section 13 process, with at least two months' notice, no more than once a year, and not at all in the first year of the tenancy. The form you need is form 4A, on GOV.UK's assured tenancy forms page. Tenarize doesn't serve it — it records what you've done and collects the right amount from the right date.

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A rent payment failed. What happens?

Both you and your tenant are emailed, the month reopens as unpaid, and if it was an auto-pay attempt a retry is scheduled automatically four days later.

A failure is never silent.

  • You and your tenant are both emailed as soon as Stripe reports it.
  • The month goes back to unpaid, so it reappears in the arrears view and can be charged again.
  • If it was an auto-pay attempt, a retry is scheduled four days out — which is precisely the window in which your tenant can fix a stale mandate using Change bank details.

If the tenant's bank cancels the mandate entirely, Tenarize is told by Stripe and clears the saved payment method and switches auto-pay off straight away, rather than waiting a month to find out at the next charge.

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How do I see who is behind on rent right now?

The Arrears card on the Payments page lists every active tenancy whose current month is past due and unpaid, sorted by how overdue it is.

The Arrears card at the top of the Payments page answers 'who should I be chasing today'. For each entry it shows the property, tenant, days overdue, amount and whether auto-pay is on, and links straight through to the tenancy.

It's deliberately a different thing from the two reporting views next to it: the rent report is a fixed historical date range, and the Late badge on a payment row is a per-payment fact about one charge. Arrears is the live picture.

Your tenant sees the same position on their own tenancy page — that the rent is overdue, and by how many days. It is the same calculation behind both, so you are not chasing someone who has been shown nothing.

Worth knowing: A payment still processing counts as paid for arrears purposes, so a Bacs payment in flight doesn't put a tenant on the list.

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Can I charge interest on late rent?

Yes, within the statutory cap — the Bank of England base rate plus 3 percentage points, and only once rent is more than 14 days overdue.

The Tenant Fees Act 2019 permits interest on late rent, capped at the Bank of England base rate plus 3 percentage points, and only chargeable once the rent is more than 14 days overdue. Arbitrary flat late fees are not permitted.

Turn it on per tenancy and set your annual rate. Tenarize enforces the cap twice: it refuses to save a rate above the current cap, and it recalculates the cap again every time interest accrues or is charged. If the base rate falls after you set your rate, the charge is automatically reduced to the legal maximum rather than continuing at a rate that has since become unlawful — and you're shown a warning so you know.

  • The base rate is fetched from the Bank of England's own published figures and refreshed weekly.
  • Interest accrues from the due date, and only becomes chargeable once the 14-day threshold is crossed.
  • Your tenant settles it as a separate payment, never bundled with rent and never taken by auto-pay.
  • You can waive what's accrued for a cycle without turning the charge off.

Worth knowing: The generated tenancy agreement always states the position — your configured rate, or that no interest applies. If you activated the tenancy with your own agreement, Tenarize can't know what yours says, and will warn you accordingly.

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Can I let a tenant off an accrued late payment charge?

Yes — 'Waive this charge' forgives whatever has accrued for the current cycle without switching the charge off for future months.

The accrued-charge banner on the tenancy has a Waive this charge button. It forgives the amount currently accrued for that billing cycle only — the charge stays configured and starts accruing again as normal on any future late payment.

Tenarize keeps showing the real accrued figure alongside the waiver rather than resetting it to zero, so your own record reads 'accrued but waived' and you can see what you forgave. Your tenant is refused if they try to pay it. The waiver is written to the tenancy audit trail.

Worth knowing: The waiver applies to one cycle. It doesn't carry into next month — a fresh cycle simply isn't covered by it.

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What happens if a tenant reverses a rent payment?

Under the Direct Debit Guarantee a payer's bank can reverse a payment at any time and the decision is final — the money leaves your Stripe balance.

This is the one genuinely uncomfortable property of Bacs, and it's worth understanding before you rely on it. Under the Direct Debit Guarantee a payer can ask their bank to reverse a Direct Debit. There is no time limit, and the bank's decision is final — it cannot be appealed by you or by Tenarize, and there is no evidence to submit.

Because rent is charged on your own Stripe account, a reversal is taken from your Stripe balance. If your balance doesn't cover it, Stripe recovers the shortfall from the bank account you linked for payouts. Nothing is owed to Tenarize and nothing is withheld from other rent.

  • The payment moves to a Disputed status, which reopens that month as unpaid — so it reappears in arrears and can be charged again.
  • You're emailed when it happens, and every reversal is listed in a Reversals panel on the Payments page with the amount, date, reason in plain English, and a link to the tenancy.
  • Chasing the rent itself is then between you and your tenant, exactly as it would be with any other unpaid month.

Worth knowing: The Reversals panel is read-only on purpose. Offering a 'challenge this' button on a decision that cannot be challenged would be worse than offering nothing.

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What does the rent payment look like on my tenant's bank statement?

It shows Stripe's name rather than yours, because Stripe collects the Direct Debit. Your name and the property appear in the payment reference and rent emails.

On a Direct Debit, the name your tenant's bank shows is the name of whoever collects the payment. Rent is collected through Stripe, so the statement line reads as Stripe — not you, and not Tenarize.

It isn't a setting you can change, and it's the same for every landlord collecting rent through Tenarize.

Your name and the property are carried where they're more use anyway: in the payment reference, and in the rent emails Tenarize sends. Stripe also emails your tenant to confirm the Direct Debit when it's set up, and again ahead of each payment.

Worth knowing: Worth telling your tenant up front — an unexplained 'Stripe' line is the most common reason a first Direct Debit gets queried.

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Can I get a rent statement for my accountant?

Yes — a rent report for any property or the whole portfolio over any date range, as a PDF or a CSV, with UK tax year presets built in.

The Payments page has a rent report card. Pick a property or the whole portfolio, pick a date range, and choose PDF or CSV.

  • Presets cover this and last month, this and last calendar year, and this and last UK tax year (6 April to 5 April), with the actual dates shown in the label so you can see what you're about to export.
  • The PDF shows collected totals, payment and late counts, and an itemised table with late rows highlighted.
  • The CSV is machine-readable for importing into accounting software, with ISO dates and plain decimal amounts.

The CSV carries both date initiated and date paid for every payment, deliberately. Which one is right depends on whether your accountant works on the cash basis or the accruals basis, and a Bacs payment started on 2 April but settled on 9 April falls on different sides of the tax year end depending on the answer.

Worth knowing: The equivalent for money going out is the maintenance expense report.

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What does the landlord dashboard show me?

Rent due against rent collected, occupancy and arrears, plus a property's rent netted against a mortgage payment you record yourself — over 1 to 24 months.

Signing in takes you to /dashboard rather than the map, once you have at least one property. It draws four things over the same window — 12 months by default, anywhere from 1 to 24 if you want to look further back or narrower: rent due against rent collected, rent against a mortgage payment you've recorded, occupancy across everything you let, and who's behind on rent right now.

  • Rent due vs collected — a meter for each month: what was due is the track, what came in fills it, and the gap is the shortfall.
  • Rent vs mortgage — a chart with the net drawn over it, so whether a month ran ahead or behind reads straight off where the line sits.
  • Occupancy — counted by bedroom on a room-by-room let, not by front door, so a five-bed house with one room taken doesn't read as fully let.
  • Who's behind on rent — the same Arrears card from the Payments page, surfaced here too.

The mortgage half needs one thing from you first: a monthly payment, a start date and (optionally) a lender name, recorded once on the property's own page. From those two numbers Tenarize works out what you've paid towards it in total — the monthly figure multiplied by the months elapsed — and nets it against that property's rent.

Worth knowing: There's no lender integration and no open banking, and nobody is ever contacted on your behalf — you're typing in a figure, the same as you would into a spreadsheet. The total is always an estimate: it knows nothing about a rate change, an overpayment or a remortgage. If you haven't filled it in for a property, the dashboard shows nothing for that property rather than assuming zero, and says how many of your properties have a figure recorded.

Worth knowing: The net line is rent in minus mortgage out, and nothing else — it isn't a profit figure, a yield or a return. It doesn't know what you pay for landlord insurance, an agent, ground rent, a service charge, a void period or tax.

Rent collected means collected through Tenarize. If you take rent by standing order, or by any route that doesn't go through the platform, the dashboard shows zero for it — nothing here imports a bank statement. A payment that's later reversed or refunded drops back out of the total on its own.

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Billing and your subscription

Plans, pricing, the free trial, changing tier, cancelling, refunds and what happens if a payment fails.

What does Tenarize cost?

£15/month for 1–5 properties, £35 for 6–10 and £75 for 11–20, plus £1 per property beyond 20 — or 20% less if you pay annually.

Pricing is by number of properties, not by tenant, and there is no setup fee.

  • Starter — £15/month, 1 to 5 properties.
  • Growth — £35/month, 6 to 10 properties.
  • Portfolio — £75/month, 11 to 20 properties, then £1/month for each property beyond 20.

Paying annually costs 20% less than twelve months at the monthly rate — £144, £336 and £720 a year respectively, charged for the full year when you start it. You can switch between monthly and annual whenever you like, from the billing page.

There's no per-tenant charge and no commission on rent. See the pricing page for the full comparison.

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Do you charge per tenant?

No. Pricing is by property, however many tenants live in it — and tenants are never charged anything for their side of Tenarize.

There is no per-tenant charge and no per-user charge. A flat with one tenant and a five-bedroom HMO let room by room are both one property against your tier.

Tenants pay nothing to Tenarize either. Their portal, e-signing, rent payments, document access and maintenance reporting are all covered by your subscription.

Worth knowing: What does count towards a tier is lettable units, not addresses. A building you've grouped in Tenarize counts its individual flats rather than the building itself — so a block of four is four properties, while a four-bedroom HMO is one.

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Is there a free trial?

Yes — one month free, once per account. A card is needed to start it but isn't charged until the trial ends, or you can skip the trial entirely.

New accounts get a one-month free trial of the full product. You add a card to start it and nothing is charged until it ends. Stripe emails you before the trial expires, and Tenarize emails you three days out naming the amount that will be charged.

  • You can tick Skip the free trial to be billed immediately instead.
  • The trial is once per account, not once per subscription — cancelling and resubscribing later doesn't produce a second free month. If you've already had yours, the billing page says so up front and the skip-trial option disappears rather than promising something that won't happen.
  • Rent collection works during the trial — starting the trial is what switches it on, so there is no reason to skip the trial in order to start collecting sooner. It does separately need your Stripe onboarding finished, trial or not.
  • You can cancel the trial from the billing page at any point. It then ends on its last day rather than straight away: you keep using everything until then, nothing is charged, and Tenarize doesn't send the three-day email. You can change your mind until the trial ends.
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What happens if I go over my plan's property limit?

You're prompted to move up a tier and given 30 days to do it yourself, after which it happens automatically so rent collection is never interrupted.

Two different things can happen, and they aren't the same mechanic:

  • Crossing a tier boundary — adding a sixth property on Starter, say. You get an in-app prompt and a 30-day grace period to upgrade yourself, with prorated billing. If you haven't by then, Tenarize moves you up automatically and emails you naming what was charged, so rent collection is never interrupted by a limit.
  • Going past 20 on Portfolio — not a tier change at all. The extra properties are added to your subscription as a quantity at £1 each, automatically, with no prompt and no grace period.

You can also upgrade ahead of need, or downgrade, at any time — see changing plan.

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Can I change or downgrade my plan?

Yes — switch tier either way from the billing page, prorated and charged at the time. A downgrade is blocked only if you have too many properties for it.

The billing page shows all three tiers with a switch button on each. Moving in either direction is prorated by Stripe, so you're credited or charged for the remainder of the period rather than paying twice. You're shown the figure before you confirm, and an upgrade is charged there and then — moving up doesn't change your renewal date.

The only restriction is arithmetic: you can't downgrade into a tier that doesn't fit your current property count. The button is disabled with an explanation rather than failing after you press it.

Switching between monthly and annual billing is a separate button and can be done independently of changing tier. The billing page shows you what the switch costs before you confirm it.

Worth knowing: Moving to annual charges the year straight away, less credit for the days you've already paid for, and your renewal date moves to that day. Moving back to monthly part-way through a year you've already paid for doesn't refund the balance to your card — it becomes credit on your account, which comes off your invoices until it runs out. Your billing page shows the credit you're holding.

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Can I cancel, and can I get a refund?

You can cancel any time with no lock-in — and once per account, within three months of starting and with no active tenancy, get a full refund of everything paid.

Which route you get depends on how far in you are.

  • During the free trial — Cancel trial on the billing page. Nothing has been charged, so there's nothing to refund: the trial runs to its last day and then ends without charging your card.
  • Ordinary cancellation — available any time from Manage billing. Your subscription ends per its terms. No refund.
  • Cancel with a full refund — self-service, no support ticket, refunding every payment you've made under the subscription. Available once you've started paying, once per account, while you're within three months of the subscription starting and have no active tenancy.

The active-tenancy condition exists because refunding and cancelling out from under a live tenancy would leave a tenant's Direct Debit pointing at an account that can no longer collect. End the tenancy first, or use the ordinary cancel.

Worth knowing: The three-month window runs from when the subscription actually started, so changing tier along the way doesn't move it. The refund itself is one per account: if you subscribe again later you can still cancel any time from Manage billing, but a second full refund isn't available.

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What happens if my subscription payment fails or I cancel?

A 7-day grace period with warning emails, then the app locks for you and your tenants — but billing stays reachable and your data stays downloadable.

A card decline doesn't cut you off immediately. Once your subscription leaves trialing or active, a 7-day grace period starts and everything keeps working. You're emailed at the point the grace period begins, naming the date access pauses, and again the day before.

After seven days the app locks. That applies to your tenants too — they're emailed separately, since they lose access to their own documents over a billing relationship they aren't party to.

  • The billing page stays reachable throughout, so you can always resubscribe.
  • Download my data stays available to both you and your tenants while locked — a full export of everything, including the actual document files.
  • Nothing is deleted. Resubscribing restores access to it all.
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Do I get an invoice, and is VAT included?

Stripe emails you a VAT invoice for every subscription payment. Prices include VAT, so they are the total you pay — nothing is added on top.

Every subscription payment produces a finalised invoice, emailed to you automatically and available from Manage billing, which also holds your full payment history and lets you update your card.

The advertised prices include VAT at 20% and are the total you pay — nothing is added on top. Each invoice is a VAT invoice: it shows the VAT within the price and Tenarize Ltd's VAT registration number, GB 529 2750 75, so if you're VAT-registered yourself you can use it to reclaim the VAT.

Worth knowing: Your Tenarize subscription is an ordinary business expense against your rental income. The maintenance expense report covers property spend, not this.

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Maintenance and suppliers

Tenant-reported issues, your tradesperson database, costs, invoices and expense reporting.

How do maintenance requests work?

Your tenant reports an issue from their portal, or you log one yourself; it carries a category, urgency and status, and you can assign a supplier to it.

A maintenance request belongs to a property and, usually, a tenancy. It records who reported it, a category, an urgency and a status of Open, Assigned, Resolved or Cancelled.

  • Your tenant reports issues from their portal. You get an in-app notification and an email.
  • You can log one yourself from the property page or the maintenance list — a boiler service you've noticed is due, damage found at an inspection.
  • Assigning a supplier moves the request to Assigned automatically. That's also the point at which Tenarize stops chasing you about it in the weekly digest, because you've clearly acted on it.

You can record what the work cost and attach the invoice — see tracking repair costs.

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Can Tenarize help me actually book the gas safety check?

Yes — 60 days before a certificate expires, an Arrange renewal button gives you the engineer's number, a drafted email and a tracked job to put the invoice on.

Some compliance items you can produce at your desk. These ones you can't — somebody qualified has to visit the property. So on the property page, once a certificate is within 60 days of expiring (the same point you're emailed about it), its row gets an Arrange renewal button.

  • Gas Safety Certificate (CP12) — a Gas Safe registered engineer
  • Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) — a qualified electrician
  • Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) — an accredited domestic energy assessor
  • Legionella risk assessment, and the fire risk assessment on an HMO

Press it and you pick a supplier from your own list — the right trade for that certificate, and the ones whose catchment covers the property, offered first. You get their phone number as a one-tap call and their email as a message already written: the property address, the current expiry date, and a request for their availability and price. Nothing about your tenant is in it.

Booking it creates an ordinary maintenance request, already assigned to that supplier, so the visit is tracked like any other job — and the invoice goes on it when the work is done, feeding the expense report.

If you already know when the engineer is coming, add the visit time as you book — a date and an arrival window, like 8am to 12pm. You don't have to: most people ring the engineer first, and the time can be added to the job later. Either way, once it's set you and any tenant living at the property are each emailed a calendar invite, and sent an update if you move or cancel it. See putting visits in your calendar.

Worth knowing: If the engineer you pick has no Gas Safe registration number on file, or theirs has lapsed, you're told before you book. A CP12 from an unregistered engineer is not a valid CP12.

One thing it doesn't do: uploading the new certificate is still your step. When the job is marked resolved you're pointed back to the property page to attach the file and set its new expiry date — nothing arrives from the engineer automatically.

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Can a booked visit go straight into my calendar, and my tenant's?

Yes — set a visit time on a job and you and your tenant are each emailed a calendar invite, updated if you move or cancel it. A calendar link can add every visit.

Open any maintenance job and set the visit time: a date and an arrival window of up to 12 hours, like 8am to 12pm. You can also set it when you book a certificate renewal.

Saving it emails a calendar invite to you and to every tenant entitled to see the job — the tenant it was raised against, or, for a gas safety check or other certificate renewal, every tenant with an active tenancy at the property. Most email apps show an Add to calendar button on it. Move the time or change the supplier and everyone is sent an update to the same event; cancel the job or remove the time and they're sent a cancellation that takes it out of their calendar.

  • Your tenant's invite has the address, the arrival window and the supplier's name — not your description of the job, and never its cost.
  • Your invite also has the supplier's phone number and your description.
  • A job with no tenancy, such as a repair between lets, invites only you.

Booked inspections go into both calendars the same way.

To have every visit in one place, use the calendar link under Calendar on your Preferences page. Add it to Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or Outlook once and each visit you book appears on its own. Tenants can make their own link from their account page.

Worth knowing: The link is shown once and works without signing in, so keep it private. If you lose it or share it by mistake, make a new one — the old one stops working straight away. Google Calendar can take several hours to pick up a new visit from a link, which is why the emailed invite is sent as well.

If you set a time less than 24 hours away, Tenarize reminds you to check it with your tenant first. It doesn't stop you: an urgent repair can't always wait.

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What is the supplier database for?

It's your own list of tradespeople — plumbers, gas engineers, electricians — with their category, contact details, certifications and the areas they cover.

Suppliers are yours, not a shared marketplace. Each one records contact details, a category, and — where it matters — their certification body, certification number and expiry date.

You can also search for new suppliers to add by name, area and category. That search uses real Google Places data, showing each result's star rating and review count, so you're picking from actual businesses rather than typing details in blind.

Suppliers can be assigned to maintenance requests and are plotted on the map alongside your properties.

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How do supplier catchment areas work?

Draw the area a supplier covers on the map and Tenarize matches your properties against it; a supplier with no catchment is treated as covering everywhere.

Draw a supplier's coverage area directly on the map. Tenarize then tests each property's position against that shape, so you can see which of your properties a given supplier actually covers — and, more usefully, which have no cover for a category at all.

Worth knowing: A supplier with no catchment drawn is treated as covering everything, so you don't have to draw one for a national firm.

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Does Tenarize track my suppliers' certifications?

Yes — record a supplier's certification body, number and expiry and you'll be warned when it's missing or about to lapse.

Record the certification body, number and expiry date against a supplier and Tenarize raises a notification when one is missing or approaching expiry, with an immediate email as well as the in-app entry.

This matters more than it looks: only a Gas Safe registered engineer can issue a valid CP12, and a certificate from an engineer whose registration had lapsed is not a valid certificate.

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Can I record what a repair cost and attach the invoice?

Yes — a VAT-inclusive cost and one invoice file per request, both landlord-only and stripped out of anything a tenant can see.

Each maintenance request takes a cost figure (VAT-inclusive) and one attached invoice. Re-uploading replaces the previous file rather than building up a list.

Worth knowing: Both are landlord-only, and enforced on the server: the cost and invoice fields are removed from tenant responses before they're sent. A tenant cannot learn what you paid for a repair by any route.

Getting it all back out in bulk is the expense report.

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Can I export my property spend for a tax return?

Yes — an expense report for any date range downloads as a zip containing a summary PDF, the invoice files themselves, and optionally a CSV.

The Expense reports card on the maintenance page produces a zip rather than a bare document, because an expense's evidence is the invoice and a summary without them is half the deliverable.

  • maintenance-expenses.pdf — an itemised table with a short reference against each row.
  • invoices/ — the invoice files, each prefixed with the reference that appears in the table.
  • maintenance-expenses.csv — optional, for importing into accounting software.

It defaults to the current UK tax year. By default it includes only requests that have a cost recorded, dated by when the work was resolved (or when it was raised, if it's still open). Optional filters narrow by status, category or supplier, or widen it to include unpriced requests as a general maintenance log — and whatever you selected is printed on the PDF itself, so a saved or emailed copy always states its own scope.

Worth knowing: Cancelled requests carrying a cost are included by default. A call-out fee on a job that was later cancelled is still money out.

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Documents and reporting

The document vault, audit trails, rent and expense reports, CSV exports and Making Tax Digital.

Where are my documents stored, and how do I get them out?

In encrypted cloud object storage, organised by property and tenancy, and downloadable individually or as a zip whenever you want.

Files are held in Cloudflare R2 object storage, organised under your landlord account by property, tenancy and category. They're served through authenticated links rather than public URLs — a document link is not guessable and doesn't work for anyone who isn't entitled to it.

You can download any file individually, download all documents for a property or tenancy as a zip, or take a complete account-wide export — see exporting your data.

Document lists lead with the document's type and expiry ('Gas Safety Certificate · Expires 08/06/2027') rather than the filename, so an oddly-named upload can't obscure what it actually is.

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Can I download everything for one property or tenancy at once?

Yes — a 'download all documents' zip is available on both, built on demand and grouped by document category.

Both property and tenancy pages offer a download all documents button. The zip is built on demand from whatever is currently on file and grouped into folders by category.

The same button appears in the deletion confirmation flow, so you always have a way to take a copy before anything is removed. When you request a tenancy deletion, your tenant is separately emailed their own single-use download link — which matters most for a tenant who never claimed a portal account.

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What is the tenancy audit trail?

An append-only log of what happened on a tenancy and when, exportable as a PDF you can take to a deposit adjudication or a tribunal.

Every action worth showing in a dispute is recorded against the tenancy: status changes, checklist completions, document uploads, changes to terms, deposit and notice details, agreement send/sign/decline/activate events, inventory sign-offs, rent and late-fee payment outcomes, auto-pay changes and deletion requests. Each entry records who did it — you, your tenant, the system, the e-signature provider or Stripe — and when.

Download audit trail on the tenancy page generates the PDF fresh each time. The same download is available for every past tenancy from the Audit trails section of the property page, so a property with renewals or several room lets lists each one separately with its date range.

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Does Tenarize help with Making Tax Digital for Income Tax?

You can connect FreeAgent and have rent and costs post to your books each night, split by property — or export CSVs, which count as a valid digital link either way.

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax is already live, mandated from 6 April 2026 for qualifying income over £50,000, dropping to £30,000 in April 2027 and £20,000 in April 2028. Qualifying income is gross rent before expenses, so four properties at around £1,100 a month already crosses the first threshold — that's well inside the Starter tier.

MTD's requirement is that figures aren't re-keyed by hand, not that they travel over an API. Tenarize gives you two ways to satisfy that. You can connect FreeAgent from your profile page and have rent, late-payment interest and maintenance costs post into your own books each night, attributed to the right property. Or you can export a rent report CSV and a maintenance expense CSV, both with UK tax year presets — a downloaded CSV imported into your accounting software is a valid digital link too.

Worth knowing: FreeAgent is the only direct integration so far — there's nothing for Xero or QuickBooks yet. The CSV exports work with all of them.

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Can Tenarize send rent and costs straight to my accounts?

Yes, if you use FreeAgent. Connect it from your profile and rent, late-payment interest and repair costs post to your books each night, split by property.

Connect FreeAgent from Your profile, choose which of your own categories each kind of money should post to, and match each property to the one in FreeAgent. After that it runs nightly on its own.

What gets sent, always attributed to the right property:

  • Rent you've collected, as an invoice.
  • Late-payment interest, separately — it's taxable but it isn't rent, and your accountant will want to see the difference.
  • Maintenance costs, as a bill, with the supplier's invoice attached where you've uploaded one.
  • Any deposit you keep at the end of a tenancy, if you choose a category for it. The deposit itself is never sent — it's your tenant's money in a protection scheme, not your income. Only the part you keep is.

If a payment is later refunded or reversed by the bank, Tenarize sends a credit note rather than quietly changing the original invoice — so the correction is visible in your books instead of the history disappearing.

You'll need a FreeAgent unincorporated landlord account. FreeAgent fixes the account type when it's created and it can't be changed afterwards, so a sole trader or limited company account can't hold property income. If you're self-employed as well as a landlord you'll have both kinds — connect the landlord one.

Worth knowing: Tenarize never marks anything as paid in FreeAgent. Your bank feed already shows the money arriving, and saying so from both ends would count every payment twice. Invoices arrive as receivables for you to reconcile, exactly as they would from any other source.

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Notifications and reminders

What Tenarize chases you about, where it appears, and the weekly digest.

What will Tenarize chase me about?

Expiring documents and licences, deposit deadlines, inventory signatures, right-to-rent follow-ups, inspections, notice expiry, rent and maintenance events.

The notification bell carries anything outstanding that needs you. The main types:

  • Documents and licences expiring, or missing entirely.
  • Deposit protection due, or the 30-day deadline approaching.
  • Inventory or check-out inventory awaiting a signature.
  • Right to Rent follow-up checks falling due.
  • Inspections due, and served notices reaching their expiry date.
  • Supplier certifications missing or expiring.
  • Rent payments processing, succeeding or failing; auto-pay retries, failures, disablement and re-enablement.
  • A tenant raising a maintenance request or querying an inventory report; a tenant requesting a change to a pending agreement.

Every notification carries a link that takes you straight to the exact place you can act on it, often to the specific card on the page rather than just the page.

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Do I get emailed, or do I have to check the app?

Both — compliance and move-in items email you as soon as they're raised, rent and agreement events have their own emails, and a Monday digest catches the rest.

  • Immediately by email — the first time a compliance- or move-in-flavoured notification is raised: an expiring document, a missing licence, deposit protection due, a supplier certification lapsing, a right-to-rent follow-up, an inventory awaiting signature.
  • Their own dedicated emails — every rent, auto-pay, agreement, inventory and subscription event.
  • A weekly digest — Monday mornings, covering everything still outstanding. If you have nothing outstanding, no email is sent; there is no 'all clear' message.

You choose which of these reach you. Preferences in the sidebar has a switch for each category — see choosing which emails you get.

Worth knowing: The digest covers everything still on file, not just what you haven't clicked. Glancing at a notification isn't the same as dealing with it, and the digest deliberately doesn't treat it as such.

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Can I turn off some of Tenarize's emails?

Yes — Preferences has a switch for compliance reminders, the weekly summary, signature chasing and rent confirmations. Security and billing email always goes.

Preferences in the sidebar carries the switches. Four cover the email Tenarize sends about your own properties, and all four start switched on:

  • Compliance and legal deadlines — expiring certificates and licences, deposit protection deadlines, right-to-rent follow-ups, supplier certifications.
  • Weekly summary — the Monday digest of everything still outstanding.
  • Reminders to sign documents — the weekly nudge when an agreement or inventory is still waiting for *your* signature.
  • Rent collected successfully — the confirmation each time rent or a late-payment charge clears.

Turning one off changes what's emailed and nothing else. Every date is still tracked, every item still appears in your notification bell, and everything still shows on the property or tenancy it belongs to.

Some email can't be switched off: security alerts about your own account, billing notices about your subscription, rent collections that fail, and refunds or disputes. Those either protect the account or carry a deadline that passes whether or not you were told.

There's also one note with no switch because it only ever arrives once: if you add a property and haven't started or imported a tenancy three days later, Tenarize emails you once to explain where the tenancy and its compliance checklist are.

Two things the signature switch deliberately doesn't do. It won't stop Tenarize telling you a document is ready to sign in the first place — only the weekly chasing afterwards. And it has no effect on your tenants, who are reminded either way.

Worth knowing: Compliance reminders are the one we'd leave on, and the product says so next to the switch. With them off, an expiring gas certificate is still tracked and still shown in the app — but the app is the only place it will appear.

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How do I clear a notification?

By fixing what caused it — a notification disappears when the underlying issue is resolved, not when you read it.

Notifications aren't a to-do list you tick off. Protect the deposit, upload the replacement certificate, sign the inventory, assign a supplier to the maintenance request — and the notification goes on its own.

Opening the bell marks items as read, which changes how they're styled and clears the unread count. It doesn't remove them, and it doesn't take them out of the weekly digest.

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Account, data and security

Two-factor authentication, passwords, who processes your data, and exporting or deleting it.

Can I turn on two-factor authentication?

Yes — an authenticator app, emailed one-time codes, or both, with backup codes for when you lose your device.

Two-factor authentication is opt-in and available on both landlord and tenant accounts, from your profile page. You can enable either method independently, or both:

  • Authenticator app — scan a QR code with Google Authenticator, 1Password, Authy or similar.
  • Email codes — a one-time code sent to your account email at login.
  • Backup codes — a set of single-use codes to get in if you lose access to both. Store them somewhere other than the device you authenticate with.

You're emailed whenever two-factor authentication is enabled or disabled on your account, so a change you didn't make doesn't go unnoticed.

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Will I be told if something changes on my account?

Yes — password changes, resets, email address changes and two-factor changes all email you, and an email change also notifies the old address.

Every security-relevant change emails you: changing your password, completing a password reset, changing your login email address, and enabling or disabling two-factor authentication.

Worth knowing: A change of email address notifies the previous address, with the new one partially masked. That's the only mailbox whose owner might not be the person making the change.

Failed logins are rate-limited per account as well as per address — five wrong passwords locks the account for fifteen minutes, and says so rather than repeating a generic error.

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How strong does my password need to be?

Eight characters is the only rule. A bar under the box rates what you type from Poor to Excellent, but it's guidance rather than a gate.

The only requirement is eight characters or more. Everywhere you set one — signing up, accepting an invite, resetting a forgotten password, or changing it from your profile — a bar under the box fills as you type and rates it Poor, Weak, Fair, Strong or Excellent, with one suggestion underneath.

It marks down what gets guessed first: common words and names, football clubs, keyboard runs like "qwerty" or "abc", a year on the end, and your own name or email address. Length counts for more than anything else — three or four unrelated words beat one clever word with symbols in it.

Worth knowing: The rating is advice, not a gate. A password the bar calls Poor is still accepted as long as it's eight characters, because what the account enforces and what the screen advises shouldn't be two different things.

The rating is worked out in your browser: nothing you type into a password box is sent anywhere to be scored. It also isn't checked against passwords exposed in other companies' breaches, so a password that scores Excellent here can still be one you've used elsewhere — if it is, turn on two-factor authentication as well.

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Can I sign in with Google?

Yes, on the landlord sign-in page. You can sign up with it, or add it to an account you already have — your password keeps working either way.

Continue with Google is on the landlord sign-in page. It does one of two things depending on the address Google gives us:

  • We already have an account for that address — you're signed straight in, and Google is linked to it from then on. Your existing password is left alone and keeps working, so you can use either.
  • We don't — you're asked to accept the terms and choose whether you want marketing emails, and then the account is created. That step isn't skippable: agreeing to Google's terms isn't agreeing to ours.

If you sign up this way you have no password at all, which is deliberate rather than a gap. If you later want one — or just prefer signing in that way — use Forgot your password? on the sign-in page and we'll email you a link to set one. Google keeps working afterwards.

Two-factor authentication still applies. If you've turned on an authenticator app or email codes, Google sign-in asks for the second factor just as a password sign-in does — otherwise a new way in would quietly weaken a protection you chose.

Worth knowing: Tenant accounts don't use Google. A tenant login only exists once a landlord has invited that specific email address, so there's nothing for a Google sign-in to match against. Tenants sign in with the email and password they set when they accepted their invite.

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I think someone else has access to my account. What do I do?

Change your password — which signs out every other session automatically — or use 'Log out of all devices' from your profile.

Changing your password invalidates every previously-issued session immediately, including any on a device you no longer have. The session you're changing it from stays signed in, so you aren't logged out by your own action.

There's also an explicit Log out of all devices button on your profile, next to the change-password section, if you want to end every session without changing your password.

A completed password reset does the same thing — a reset is itself a signal that an account may have been compromised, so it ends every session rather than just the one.

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Does Tenarize store my bank details, or my tenant's?

No. Both yours and your tenant's are entered on Stripe's own forms and never reach Tenarize at all.

  • Your tenant's bank details never reach Tenarize. The Direct Debit mandate is set up on Stripe's own hosted page. Tenarize only ever sees Stripe identifiers — a customer reference, a payment method reference, a mandate reference.
  • Your own payout details don't reach Tenarize either. They're entered into Stripe's onboarding, which runs inside the app but submits to Stripe rather than to us. Nothing is written to the database, nothing is logged, and there are no bank columns on your account record.

The same is true of the identity documents Stripe asks for when verifying you. Until September 2026 your payout details did pass through Tenarize on their way to Stripe, without ever being stored; they no longer pass through at all.

More detail on how data is held is on the security page.

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Who else processes my data?

Stripe, BoldSign, Google Maps, Resend, Cloudflare, Render and OpenFreeMap — plus Google Analytics if you accept cookies. All are named in the DPA.

Every sub-processor is listed with what it does in the Data Processing Agreement. In summary:

  • Stripe — payments, both rent collection and your own subscription.
  • BoldSign — e-signature for tenancy agreements and inventory reports.
  • Google Maps Platform — address autocomplete and supplier search.
  • Resend — transactional email.
  • Cloudflare R2 — document and photo storage.
  • Render — application hosting and the database, in the EU (Frankfurt).
  • OpenFreeMap — map tiles. It receives only the map area being viewed, no account or tenant data.
  • Google Analytics and Google Ads — website and app measurement, and which of our adverts brought someone here. Only if you accepted analytics cookies, and they never receive anything from inside your account: page addresses have record IDs stripped out first.

For a landlord using Tenarize as a business, you are the controller of your tenants' data and Tenarize is your processor. That relationship is set out in the DPA, which is incorporated into the Terms of Service rather than needing a separate signature.

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How do I export everything Tenarize holds about me?

Download my data on your profile produces a zip with a structured JSON file plus every actual document, grouped into a folder per property.

Download my data on your profile page gives you a zip containing `export.json` — properties, tenants, tenancies, suppliers and rent payments — plus the real document files, not just links to them.

Files are grouped into one top-level folder per property, named with the property name and postcode so two similarly-named properties in a portfolio don't collide, and by document category underneath.

This export stays available even if your subscription has lapsed and the app is otherwise locked.

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How do I delete my Tenarize account?

From your profile, confirmed with your password (or with Google, if that is how you sign in) — and you have to delete every property first.

Account deletion is on your profile page and is gated behind your password. If you signed up with Google and so have no password, it asks you to confirm with Google instead — the right to erasure cannot be gated behind a credential you do not have. It is refused, with the exact count, while you still have properties — delete those first, which itself runs through the 30-day deferred deletion so nobody loses records without warning.

Once your properties are gone, deleting the account removes your notifications, suppliers, tenant records and any portal logins those tenants had claimed, along with your own account. Tenarize also does its best to tidy up on Stripe's side: cancelling your subscription, closing your connected account and detaching departing tenants' saved payment methods.

Export first if you want a copy — deletion is not reversible. Tenants deleting their own accounts work differently, because their landlord's compliance records have to survive it.

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How do I report a bug or ask for a feature?

Use the feedback button in the bottom-right corner of any page in the app, or email info@tenarize.com.

There's a feedback button fixed to the bottom-right corner of every page in the app, including the login screen. Pick Bug or Feature, write what happened, and send — the page you were on is included automatically.

You can also email info@tenarize.com or use the contact form. Submissions feed directly into the development backlog rather than a ticket queue that goes nowhere.

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Not legal advice

These answers describe how Tenarize works and summarise the law in England as the product implements it. They are not legal advice about your situation, and the law changes. For free independent help, Citizens Advice and Shelter both cover renting in England; for anything unusual or contested, take advice from a solicitor.

Tenarize does not currently support Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, whose tenancy regimes are different.

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