Overview
One common situation you encounter in property management is renewing or extending your tenants' leases. DoorLoop helps you with this process by giving you easy ways to track which of your leases are ending soon. Then you have several ways to renew or extend the lease depending on your preference.
Let's go through this now!
The Steps
You can always directly edit the terms of an active lease to extend the end date.
However, you may want to track the status of lease renewals at each stage of the process. The steps below will cover how to do this.
The first thing you need to do is click Leasing on the left-hand menu and then click Lease Renewals. This will bring up a list of all leases ending within the next 120 days. You can change this Period or change the date range using the Term Ends filters to update the list of lease renewals.
Find the lease you want to renew and click the Renew Lease button. You can either sort the list by the various columns and filters or use the Search leases search bar.
IMPORTANT: Leases that are set month-to-month or have rollover to month-to-month will not show up for lease renewal. This is because month-to-month leases are assumed to not actually end, so no need to renew them as they extend on their own. If you want to renew a month-to-month lease, you'll need to change the lease terms to fixed term and turn off rollover to month-to-month.
Note if you are not renewing the lease, skip to the end.
Renewing a Lease
Step 1 - Overview
On the Overview of the Renew Lease page, you’ll see a summary of the current lease you have chosen to renew. You’ll see what the Current Monthly Rent is and the Deposits Held. Below that, you’ll see the option to either renew the lease as Fixed Term or Month-to-Month.
If you choose Fixed Term, you will need to enter a new End date for the lease.
If this lease will roll over to "Month to Month" at the end of the term, check the box for this option as well.
Click Next when you are done.
Step 2 - Rent
On the Rent page is where you’ll set your new Rent Charges.
If there will be no increase to the rent amount, simply select No as your option.
If there will be an increase in rent, click Yes.
Enter the First Rent Date of when should the rent increase.
Select the Frequency of how often the charge for rent will occur.
Enter the Amount of the rent charge.
(Optional) Select Show Advanced Options and from here you can click + Add Another Charge to add additional charges as separate line items to the recurring rent schedule, such as pet rent or parking.
(Optional) You can schedule a Rent Increase by clicking on Schedule Rent Increase. This creates a future recurring rent charge that will replace the previous recurring rent schedule as of the start date you choose. You can use this to set up yearly rent increases for a multi-year lease for instance.
Click Next to continue to the next step.
Step 3 - Deposit
The Deposit tab asks whether or not you will be charging additional security deposits.
If there will be no additional deposit charges, simply select No and click Next to continue.
If there will be additional charges, select Yes.
Enter a new Deposit Recieved Date.
Under Existing Deposits, you’ll see what you are currently holding and have the option to add an Additional Deposit.
(Optional) Click Add Another Charge below New Deposits if you want to add any new charges.
Click Next to continue to the next step.
When your tenant pays for these charges, the payment creates a deposit on the lease Deposits tab.
Step 4 - Status
In this tab, you’ll need to define the status of your lease. Basically, is the lease signed or not?
If this lease is currently active, click the Signed button and upload a copy of your signed lease for secure storage if you’d like.
If this lease is not yet active, click Not Signed. This brings up e-Signature options. You will have the choice to Save as Draft or Send eSignature.
Save as Draft will save this Lease as a Draft that you can go back to later to complete it. Clicking Send eSignature will create the lease as a draft and take you to the eSignature Wizard. (Learn how to Create eSignature Templates using this article.)
Clicking Finish will end the Renew the Lease process.
What if I'm not renewing the lease?
If you aren't renewing the lease, you can click Not Renewing, which allows you to put in a Non-Renewal Notice and add any additional notes and files, but this is optional and for informational purposes only. You can't undo this process, but you can still create a new lease or edit the terms on the existing lease if the tenant ends up renewing.
The notice date and notes don't do anything right now and are meant for future functionality. The files you add get attached to the Files tab of the existing lease.
When a lease ends, it's best to use the End Lease process described in this article.
Next Steps
Learn how to use eSignatures to have your tenant electronically sign their new lease. No need to mail paper copies or in-person visits!
Learn what happens when a lease reaches the end of its term and you haven't renewed or ended the lease.