The landlord's calendar: what to do every month

A landlord's obligations do not end when the tenancy agreement is signed. Some of them come back every month and cluster around the rent and the building charges. Others fall due once a year, around tax and insurance. A third group is not in the calendar at all, because an event sets it off: a repair report, a move-in, a move-out. All three are set out here, with the date each falls due and the document it leaves behind.

The first month is easy, because everything in it is visible. The gaps collect by the eleventh. By then only the obligations nobody sends a reminder for are left: a filing deadline that arrives quietly, an insurance policy renewed automatically on an old sum insured, a notice deadline that expires while the tenancy looks perfectly normal from the outside. If you are still putting the work around the property in order, start from the general guide to managing a rental property.

Which obligations repeat and which end with the signature

Handing over the property, the agreement, the deposit and the furniture inventory are done once, at the start. The rent, the building charges, repairs, insurance, tax and the renewal decision repeat for as long as the property is let.

Close the one-off tasks deliberately, so they stop taking up attention. The inspection report with photos is drawn up at move-in and comes out again only at move-out. The agreement is signed once and changes only through a written addendum. The deposit is taken once and is needed again only when the tenancy ends. The furniture inventory is made once and is touched only if items come in or go out. How the handover itself works is covered in the article on the inspection report and photos at move-in, and what belongs in the furniture inventory is covered separately.

Everything else runs on a schedule. Rent and building association charges fall monthly. Tax and insurance, once a year. Repairs, a change of tenant and the end of the term wait to happen. If an obligation belongs to none of the three groups, check whether you have closed it, or have simply stopped thinking about it.

What to check every month

The monthly check has five points: has the rent arrived in full, is the payment recorded, are the building association charges paid, have the meters been read, and is any repair report still open.

Do it on the same day every month, two or three days after the due date. The order matters, because each step feeds the next.

1. Check the bank account for the full amount. A partial payment is a missed payment and calls for the same response as a missing one.
2. Record the payment against the month it covers. The record holds the date, the amount, the period and the payer. A bank statement proves the money moved, but not which month it settled.
3. Check the building association charges for the month and who paid them. If the agreement puts the monthly maintenance charge on the tenant, you are only confirming the payment. If the repair and renewal fund is yours, you pay it yourself.
4. Read the meters, or ask for the readings, where consumption is on the tenant, and record them against the month. Readings taken only at move-out cannot be split across periods, and a disputed consumption bill is then left without evidence.
5. Note which of the month's reports are still open. A repair report with no answer is the thing that most easily rolls from month to month without anyone deciding that it should.

Ten minutes in a fixed order close the month. Skip the check three months running and the year turns into a folder of bank statements that you then reconstruct from memory exactly where accuracy matters most: in the annual tax return.

What to do in a month when the rent does not arrive

Respond to unpaid rent in the same week, not the following month. A written reminder on the first day of the delay, a formal notice if the delay continues, and only then the remedies the agreement gives you.

Most landlords wait, because most delays sort themselves out and nobody wants to open a conflict over four days. Waiting quietly leaves no trace. A tenant who has paid late eleven times in a year looks exactly like a tenant who paid on time, unless you recorded each delay when it happened.

• First day of the delay. A short written message asking when the payment will arrive. Keep it neutral and in writing, not on the phone, because a call leaves nothing behind. If the tenant names a date, you now hold a written commitment.
• The named date, missed. A second written message referring to the first. From here on the behaviour is documented rather than remembered.
• Continued non-payment. A formal notice in the form the agreement requires, sent the way the agreement requires. If a method of service is written in, use exactly that one. A notice sent another way gets disputed later.
• The remedies. What comes next follows from the agreement and from the law. The deposit secures the end of the tenancy and is not there to top up a month. Before you move to termination or to a claim for interest, check with a lawyer what your particular agreement gives you.

If it comes to termination or to court, these are the messages you will need, with their dates. So write them while the case is running, not when they are needed.

Which repairs are the landlord's and how fast you have to respond

Repairs that keep the property fit for the agreed use are the landlord's. Damage caused by the way the property is used stays with the tenant. Answer every report on the day you receive it, whoever pays in the end.

The dividing question is whether the fault comes from age and construction, or from use. Three cases where the answer is genuinely hard:

• A water heater that fails in its eleventh year. Age decides, so the landlord pays, even though the fault happened under this tenant and the previous one had no trouble.
• A blocked drain. It depends on the cause. A collapsed section of pipe comes from age, a blockage from what went down the sink comes from use. The cause is established by whoever clears it, so keep what they recorded about what they found.
• Floor damage under a plant pot. Use decides, so the tenant pays, and the question is settled by comparison with the inspection report rather than by an abstract argument.

Speed of response is a separate question from liability. A fault that makes the property unusable, no heating in winter or no running water, gets an answer the same day, before you have decided whose cost it is. A cosmetic defect waits for the next visit. Answer fast and settle the money later, because it is the delayed answer that turns a repair into a dispute.

Which obligations fall once a year or each quarter

There are three annual tasks: tax on rental income, renewing the insurance, and deciding what the rent should be for the next term. Advance tax is added to them, paid during the year rather than all at once with the return.

• Tax on rental income. The filing deadline, the form and the deductions allowed change from year to year, so check them for the year in question with the revenue authority or an accountant, rather than relying on what you remember from last year. Whatever the check shows, the material is the same: the twelve monthly payment records and everything you will rely on.
• Advance tax during the year. It is paid in instalments, ahead of the annual return. Which periods carry a payment, and by when, is again worth checking for the current year with the revenue authority.
• When the tenant is a company. A legal entity may carry its own withholding and reporting duties that an individual tenant does not, and that changes both the amount that reaches you and what you declare yourself. Settle it with an accountant at the start of the tenancy, not at filing time.
• Renewing the insurance. The date is fixed in the policy. Check whether the sum insured still matches what rebuilding would cost today, and whether the policy reflects that the property is let. If your insurer has it recorded as owner-occupied, it may take a different view on a claim.
• The decision on the rent. Take it before the last three months of the term begin. That way the figure is ready when the terms go to the tenant.

Two things are worth doing today, without waiting for any of these deadlines. Put the annual tasks in the calendar with a reminder a month ahead, not on the day itself. And keep the twelve monthly records in one place as the year runs. Then the return gets assembled rather than reconstructed.

What is triggered by an event rather than a date

A move-in, a move-out, a change of tenant and a sale each trigger their own set of actions. None of them sits in the calendar, so each one needs a written record the same day.

• Move-in. Leaves an inspection report, photos, a furniture inventory and opening meter readings.
• Move-out. Leaves the same four documents a second time, compared against the first set, and the deposit decision comes out of that comparison.
• Change of tenant. If one flatmate leaves and another moves in, do not leave the swap informal. Record in writing who is party to the agreement and from what date, or you will carry obligations towards someone whose name appears in no document.
• Sale. The buyer receives the agreement, the inspection report, the deposit record and the payment history. What happens to a running tenancy after the transfer is worth settling with a lawyer before the deal, because it is also dealt with in the sale contract itself.

The same thing goes wrong in all four cases. The landlord handles the event competently and leaves nothing on paper, because it arrived as a conversation rather than as a task.

What to do three months before the agreement expires

Three months before the end of the term, decide whether you are renewing, at what rent and on what terms. Leave it to the last few weeks and your choice narrows to whatever the tenant is willing to accept.

Count back from the end date in the agreement:

• Three months before. You decide: renew or re-let. If you are re-letting, the listing goes up now, not after the tenant has moved out. One empty month costs you a full month's rent, which outweighs almost any negotiation over an increase.
• Two months before. If you are renewing, put the terms in writing: term, rent, what changes. A tenant who hears about a higher rent two weeks before the end takes it as an ultimatum. A tenant with two months ahead of them takes it as a decision.
• The notice deadline. It is written into the agreement and usually falls inside those same three months. Get the agreement out and find the exact date, because after it your choice narrows sharply.
• One month before. Either the renewal addendum is signed, or the move-out is scheduled with a date and time for the report.

A renewal is a written addendum to the existing agreement, and it says what changes and what stays. When the two sides settle it in messages and never put anything in form, the real terms of the tenancy become disputable the first time they are needed. If the tenant stays on after the end date with no new agreement, the position is uncertain for both of you, so sign the addendum before the date rather than working out afterwards what applies.

What document each task in the calendar leaves

Every recurring obligation leaves one document: a payment record, a written answer to a repair report, an inspection report, a renewal addendum. A year later you prove the document, not the action.

Most landlords meet their obligations. What they cannot do a year later is show that they met them. A repair agreed on the phone and done the same day is left without proof. Rent received in cash with no document issued can be proved only if the tenant confirms it. In both cases the work was done and only the record is missing.

Here is when each task falls due and what document has to be left behind:

• Rent received, monthly. A payment record with the month, the amount and the payer.
• Building association charges, monthly. Proof of payment and of who made it.
• Meter readings, monthly. A dated reading, recorded against the month.
• Rent not received, on the event. The written reminder and the reply to it.
• Repair report, on the event. The tenant's report and your written answer.
• Repair carried out, on the event. The invoice and a description of the fault found.
• Annual return, yearly. The return as filed and the records behind it.
• Insurance renewal, yearly. The policy in force.
• Renewal or termination, yearly. A signed addendum, or an inspection report and a settled deposit.
• Move-in and move-out, on the event. Inspection report, photos, inventory, readings.

How long each of these is kept depends on the type, and the retention periods for tax documents are worth checking with an accountant. Until then keep everything for the whole tenancy and well beyond its end, and do not throw away the inspection report at all while the property is yours.

Two habits carry most of the load. Write the record at the moment of the event rather than at the end of the month, because errors come in during reconstruction from memory. And keep one folder per property rather than one per calendar year, because a dispute is about a tenancy, and a tenancy rarely fits inside one year.

Some of these deadlines do not have to rely on your memory, if something else tracks them. Notifications and alerts in Smarter Facility send word by email and to your phone when a payment is late, when a new maintenance request comes in, and before an agreement expires or renews, which is to say at exactly the three events you otherwise remember to check a month later.