How to Collect Tenant, Lease and Unit Details When Taking On a New Property

Why it usually goes wrong

Self-managing owners keep records their own way, and outgoing managers export whatever their software produces. You then rebuild it for your own system, and the gaps show up as tenants charged the wrong rent, deposits nobody can account for and units missing because they were vacant. Asking for the details in a fixed format, checked as they're filled in, is faster than chasing them afterwards.

1. The property and every unit

Everything else hangs off the unit list, so start here.

The property's name and full address, written the same way on every row

The property type: single family, multi-family, condo, townhome or commercial

Every unit, including vacant ones, with its unit number as text so 01 stays 01 (Unit Inventory & Asset Tracking template)

Bedrooms, bathrooms and square footage for each unit

2. Owners and how they're paid

Who you report to and pay out to.

Each owner's company name, or first and last name

Each owner's share, as a percentage that adds up to 100 for the property

Contact details for statements and approvals

Payout bank details through your software's secure owner onboarding, not in the same spreadsheet

3. Tenants and leases

What the first month's rent charges are built from.

Every tenant on each lease, not just the first name on it, with an email and phone number (Residential Tenant Directory template)

Lease start and end dates in one format, and which leases are month-to-month

Rent, how often it's paid, and the due day, as plain numbers

Other recurring charges, such as parking, pets or storage, each with its own amount

For commercial units, the rent schedule, escalations and who pays which charges (Commercial Rent Roll template)

4. Balances on the handover date

The numbers most likely to cause a dispute later.

What each tenant owes on the handover date, and what they've paid in advance

Security deposits actually held, and where, for each lease

The date these balances are as of, written on the file

5. Documents and the rest

Ask for these too, but keep them out of the spreadsheet.

Signed leases and any amendments or renewals

Move-in inspection reports and photos, for deposit deductions later

Open maintenance requests, and the vendors and contractors who know the building (Vendor & Contractor Service Record template)

Keys, access codes and who holds copies

Mistakes that lead to wrong rent charges

A rent roll exported months ago, before the last renewals and rent increases

Deposits recorded at the amount on the lease rather than the amount actually held

Only the first tenant on each lease, so co-tenants never get a portal invite

Month-to-month leases given a made-up end date, or the word month-to-month in a date column

Vacant units left off the list, so they never appear in your system

Rent written as $1,600/mo or 1600 + parking instead of separate amounts

Once you have it, the guide to moving tenant and lease data into new software covers the import order and the errors that get rows rejected.

How to collect it

Send one form, not a blank spreadsheet

Give the owner or outgoing manager a form with exactly your columns: one row per unit, dates in one format, rent and deposits as numbers, and property types from a dropdown. Mistakes are highlighted while they fill it in, not after you've imported it.

Let them paste their rent roll

Most owners and managers can export a rent roll. They can import it into the form and fix only what's highlighted, rather than retyping every lease.

Use your software's columns from the start

If you know where the data is going, collect it in that system's format. The DoorLoop residential template downloads a file in the columns of DoorLoop's migration spreadsheet. More for property managers is on Import Builder for property managers.

Collect every unit and lease in one format

Start from the residential tenants template, adjust the columns, and send the owner one link. They fix what's highlighted, and you get a CSV in your format. Their data is checked in the browser and never stored by us.

Try the residential tenants template