Managing properties for your landlords
What you can do in HouseFile for your landlords, and where to find it.
Quick start
You don't need your own subscription: you work under each landlord's plan.
Accept the invitation
Accept the landlord's email invitation from its link, or invite a landlord yourself from your dashboard.
View your dashboard
See how each landlord's properties stand and what needs attention.
Manage properties
Add documents and share them with tenants, depending on the role the landlord gave you.
Understanding your role
Each landlord gives you one of three roles:
Can see properties, documents, tenancies and tenants' responses. Can't change anything.
Can upload, replace and edit documents, and leave notes. Tenancies and tenant links are for Managers.
Can also start tenancies and send tenant links, and ask the landlord for documents. With access to all their properties, you can add properties for them and set their default checklist and templates.
What only the landlord can delete. A property, and anything a tenant has opened: the document, the link they opened it through, and the tenancy or room it belongs to. You can still replace a file, archive a tenancy or change when a link expires.
How to add a property
The landlord adds their own properties. If they gave you all of them, including future ones, each new one appears on your Clients page under their name. Otherwise it appears once they share it with you.
As a Manager of all their properties, you can add one for them with Add property next to their name, or from their row in Your clients on your dashboard. It still belongs to the landlord and counts towards their plan.
Uploading documents
Editors and Managers can add and replace documents.
Adding documents to a property
Open the property
From your Clients page.
Go to the Documents tab
Required documents still missing are listed at the top.
Choose “Add documents”
Add one file or several, and HouseFile matches each to the checklist where it can.
Check the title, category and expiry date
HouseFile reads them from the file when it can. If the expiry date is blank, add it.
Always set the expiry date
Reminders run from it. A gas safety check is due every 12 months, so for the gas safety record use the date the next check is due. An Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) is needed at least every 5 years, and an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) lasts 10 years.
Managing the document checklist
The landlord's default checklist decides which documents count towards compliance, whatever your role.
Property checklist
It's the set of slots on a property's Documents tab. An empty slot has a dashed outline, and a document turns amber in its last 30 days and red once it has expired.
Default checklist (Managers)
It also sets what a new property or tenancy starts with, and what Add from checklist adds. A Manager of all the landlord's properties can change it: on your dashboard, open the ··· menu next to the landlord in Your clients and choose Checklist and templates.
Creating tenant links
Managers share documents with tenants through a link.
Creating a link for tenants
Open the Tenancy & sharing tab
It sits next to Documents.
Start a tenancy
This creates a link for the lead tenant if there isn't one. For anyone else, choose “Create another link”.
Check what the link shows
It shows the property's documents and the tenancy documents shared with the tenant. Check it includes the gas safety record, EPC, EICR, written statement of terms and any deposit prescribed information.
Send the link
“Send link” emails it if you added their email, then HouseFile reminds them every 3 days until they've opened everything. Or use “Copy link”. Tenants don't need an account.
Track their responses
“Show documents” gives the date each one was opened or agreed to. HouseFile also keeps the name the tenant typed in.
Why this matters
The landlord must give tenants certain documents and may need to show they did. The property's Compliance report puts this record in a PDF.
Using templates
Templates save setting up the same document again on every property.
What are templates?
A template holds a document you reuse, like house rules or emergency contacts, with its content and settings.
On a property's Documents tab, choose More, then Add from a template. An empty slot with a matching name offers Use a template. The templates you see are that landlord's.
Managing templates (Managers)
A Manager of all the landlord's properties can create and edit their templates:
- 1. On your dashboard, find the landlord in Your clients
- 2. Open the ··· menu and choose Checklist and templates
- 3. Choose Templates and create the documents you reuse
Internal notes
Notes stay between the landlord and the people working on the property. Tenants never see them.
Using notes
Open the Activity tab
“Notes” is below the history.
Add a note
Choose “Add a note” and write anything the landlord should know.
Pin the important ones
Pin a note you wrote to keep it at the top.
Use the Notes page
“Notes” in the sidebar gathers every property's notes, with filters for landlord, property and unread.
Document requests
Ask the landlord for anything missing.
Requesting a document (Managers only)
Open the Activity tab
“Document requests” is below the notes.
Choose “Request a document”
Name the document and set the priority. The category is optional.
Add a description (optional)
Say why you need it, or which version.
Send it with “Request Document”
The landlord gets an email, and you get one when they add the document.
The default
Needed soon
Needed immediately
View all requests
“Doc Requests” in the sidebar lists every request across your landlords, including any they've sent you.
Tracking document expiries
HouseFile tracks every expiry date and reminds you before a certificate runs out.
The calendar
“Calendar” in the sidebar lists them by date. “Due soon” means within 30 days.
Automatic reminders
A certificate or licence gets three reminders: 30 days before it expires, 7 days before, and on the day:
- An email to the landlord
- The same email to you, unless you turn it off in Settings
- A notification in HouseFile for the landlord, Managers and Editors
- Once expired, it stays in “Needs attention” until it's renewed
Key features for agents
Needs attention
Expired and expiring documents, licences that need action and tenants yet to respond.
Expiry calendar
Every expiry date across your landlords, with rent reviews too.
Document requests
Ask the landlord for a missing document, and get an email when it's added.
Property notes
Notes you and the landlord share on each property. Pin the ones that matter.
Checklist and templates (Managers)
A Manager of all the landlord's properties sets these from the ··· menu next to them in Your clients.
Tips for efficient management
- Start each day with “Needs attention” on your dashboard
- Review the calendar one landlord at a time
- If you manage a whole portfolio, set up its checklist and templates before adding properties
- Request a renewal a few weeks before a certificate expires
- Check for unread notes on the Notes page
- Press Cmd+K, or Ctrl+K on Windows, to search properties, documents and pages