Leases

A lease passes through four statuses:

• DRAFT — created, not signed, no rent generation.
• PENDING_SIGNATURE — sent to the tenant; portal shows the contract for signing.
• ACTIVE — both parties signed; rent charges generate every period.
• TERMINATED or EXPIRED — closed out; future charges stop.

1. Leases → New Lease.
2. Pick a unit. The system blocks units already on an ACTIVE lease.
3. Pick the primary tenant. Add co-tenants from the Co-tenants tab after the lease is saved — each co-tenant signs independently.
4. Set start date, end date, rent amount, deposit, frequency (MONTHLY / QUARTERLY / ANNUAL).
5. Currency defaults to the unit's property currency; override per lease if needed.
6. Set advanceMonths if the tenant pre-paid rent (e.g., 3 months advance means the first 3 charge periods are skipped).
7. Optionally configure escalation (NONE / FIXED / PERCENTAGE), late-fee rules, grace period.

Each lease produces a PDF contract from a template (Settings → Contract Templates). Templates support placeholders like {{tenant.firstName}}, {{lease.rentAmount}}, {{property.address}}.

When you transition a lease from DRAFT to PENDING_SIGNATURE, the tenant receives an email + SMS with a portal link. They review the contract, draw their signature, and submit. The landlord countersigns from the dashboard. Both signatures are stored as PNGs and stamped into the PDF on activation.

60 days before endDate (configurable in Settings → Renewal Config), the renewal job marks the lease for review. A dashboard reminder appears, and the tenant gets a notification in the portal.

1. Open the lease → Renewals tab → Propose Renewal.
2. Set new term, new rent (auto-suggested by escalation rule), new deposit delta if any.
3. Send to the tenant. They accept/reject from the portal.
4. On acceptance, a new lease is generated and the current one auto-closes when the old end-date passes.

When a lease ends, open it and use the Move-out tab. The flow:

1. Schedule the move-out inspection.
2. Inspector files a Move-out Inspection report with deduction line items (cleaning, damages, unpaid utilities).
3. System computes refundAmount = deposit − totalDeductions.
4. Refund routes through Approvals if your org policy requires it.
5. On approval, an Expense + GL entries post automatically and the lease flips to TERMINATED.

Add as many co-tenants as the unit allows. Each gets their own portal login and signs the lease independently. Rent payments are recorded on the lease, not per co-tenant — they're jointly liable for the balance.