Portfolio landlords
Compliance software for portfolio landlords.
Nobody sends you a reminder. The first notice that something lapsed is usually the thing you least wanted to receive.
14 days free access · no card needed
A self-managing landlord with a growing portfolio hits a specific wall. The approach that worked for two properties — remembering, and a folder — stops working somewhere around eight, and nothing announces that it has stopped working. It simply starts failing quietly.
There is no agency structure, no compliance administrator and nobody whose job this is. The landlord is the maintenance coordinator, the tenancy administrator and the person who has to find a gas safety record from three years ago when a tenant disputes something.
The risk is concentrated in the gap between properties. Each one is individually simple; it is holding twenty of them, each on its own cycle, that no human memory is built for.
The records
What portfolio landlords have to keep
- Gas safety records, with the date each one runs out
- [EICR](/glossary/eicr) and electrical safety evidence
- [EPC](/glossary/epc), and the rating each property holds
- [Right to Rent](/glossary/right-to-rent) checks, and any follow-up date
- Deposit protection and [prescribed information](/glossary/prescribed-information)
- Inspection reports, and the repairs they raise
PropertyOptix holds each of these against the property or tenancy it belongs to, with its own expiry.
The problem
What makes this hard for portfolio landlords
No system arrives with the portfolio
Properties are bought one at a time and the admin grows with them, so the method is always the one that suited a smaller portfolio. There is rarely a moment where anybody decides to change it, only a moment where it fails.
Certificates on twenty different cycles
Each property's documents renew on their own dates, set by when the last one was done rather than by anything shared. There is no natural prompt, and no month of the year when it is obviously time to deal with it.
Repairs reported by text, at night
Tenants report directly, through whichever channel they have — a message, a call, a conversation. What was reported, when, and what happened about it is spread across a phone rather than held anywhere, which is a problem only when it becomes a dispute.
Evidence needed years later
The document that matters is usually the one from two tenancies ago. Serving notice, defending a deposit claim or answering a council all depend on producing something from a period you have stopped thinking about.
Growth makes it worse, not better
Every additional property adds a full set of obligations and no additional capacity. The portfolio that is working is usually the one that has not yet been tested.
The answer
How PropertyOptix helps
Certificates on twenty different cycles
Each certificate carries its own expiry with an alert ahead of it, so renewals arrive as something raised rather than something remembered.
CertificatesNo system arrives with the portfolio
Every property has one record holding its documents, tenancies, inspections and repair history, which is the structure a folder per property never quite becomes.
PropertiesRepairs reported by text, at night
A repair is recorded from report through to contractor close-out, so what was reported and what was done about it sit together instead of in a phone.
RepairsEvidence needed years later
Documents are held against the property and the tenancy they belong to, so finding something from two tenancies ago is a lookup rather than an excavation.
DocumentsGrowth makes it worse, not better
Portfolio-wide reporting shows what is about to lapse across every property at once, which is the view that stops the next purchase making things worse.
Compliance Reporting
Who it is for
The people doing this job
Self-managing landlords
Doing every part of this themselves, usually alongside something else.
landlord gas safety dutyFamily and partners helping out
Picking up calls and arranging contractors without the full picture of what is due.
Bookkeepers and accountants
Handling the money, and often the only other person with any view of the portfolio.
Contractors you use repeatedly
A small trusted group whose insurance and accreditation still has to be current.
Tenants
Reporting repairs directly, and entitled to documents at the points the law requires.
How to Rent guide
Questions
What portfolio landlords ask
- Is this overkill for eight properties?
- The obligations are identical whether you hold two or eighty, and nobody sends a reminder either way. Eight is around the point where memory stops being a system, which is usually why people start looking.
- Does it collect rent or produce statements?
- No. There is no rent collection, accounting or statements in it. It handles the compliance, the repairs and the records, and sits alongside whatever you use for money.
- Can I give my accountant or a family member access?
- Access is role-based, so somebody can be given the part of the portfolio they need rather than all of it.
- What happens when I sell a property?
- Its record, documents and history stay intact. The compliance history of a property you no longer own is often exactly what gets asked about afterwards.
- Does it work if I also use an agent for some properties?
- Yes. Properties are recorded whether you manage them or somebody else does, though what the agent holds is only in your system if it gets recorded there.
Keep reading
Every certificate, on the property it belongs to
Properties, tenancies, inspections and repairs on one record, for portfolio landlords.
14 days free access · no card needed