Product documentation

A complete reference to what Estate Portal does: every module, how the money side works, who can do what, and which reminders run automatically.

Overview

Estate Portal is lettings-management software for UK letting agencies. It replaces the spreadsheets, shared inboxes and scattered tools an agency juggles with one connected system: properties, landlords, tenants, tenancies, maintenance, compliance, viewings, rent and landlord statements.

• One workspace per agency. Each agency's data is fully isolated from every other agency's.
• Everything is linked. A tenancy ties together a property, its tenants, the rent schedule, deposits, compliance and statements, and each record links straight to the others.
• Everything is audited. Every change records who did what, and when.

Portfolio & people

Properties

Every unit the agency manages. A property record holds address, type, bedrooms, rent (shown monthly and weekly), deposit, furnishing, EPC, council tax band, heating, management type and fee, local authority and licence number.

• The agency's own reference, searchable from everywhere.
• A marketing pack: summary, size, floors, a features checklist, bills included, letting flags (short let, students, shared, retirement) and a video or virtual-tour link.
• A photo gallery, grid and list views, and one-click Duplicate for the next unit in a block.
• Property status updates automatically as tenancies start and end.
• A per-property VAT opt-out for statements.

Landlords

Full landlord records, including bank and payment details (stored encrypted) for remittances, linked properties and statements, and onboarding compliance: ID and agreement for individuals, an agreement for companies.

Tenants

Tenant records with contact details, linked tenancies and history. Includes Right to Rent status and dates with re-check reminders, and a deposit-protection deadline alert so the 30-day legal window is never missed.

Contractors

A trades directory with accreditations, insurance (with expiry tracking), and the jobs and costs attributed to each contractor.

Lettings pipeline

Enquiries

An applicant pipeline from first enquiry to ready-to-move-in: new, contacted, viewing, offer, referencing, ready. View it as a board or a list. Rejection reasons are captured. A successful applicant becomes a tenant on the same record.

Viewings

Book and track viewings against applicants or walk-ins, with feedback, outcomes and follow-ups. Bookable from the property, the enquiry, or the viewings diary.

Tenancies

The core record: parties (one or more tenants), dates, rent, deposit, term and status (draft, active, ended).

• Rent changes are effective-dated; a mid-period change is billed pro-rata.
• Management-fee changes per property are tracked over time.
• A move-in checklist walks each new let from offer to settled move-in (references, Right to Rent, deposit protection, agreement, inventory, first rent). Most steps are derived from the record itself, with a progress bar on the tenancies list.
• Charge-from date: when migrating an existing book, a tenancy can start charging from a chosen date so historic months aren't billed as overdue.

Operations

Maintenance

Log issues, assign a contractor and a handling team member, and track priority and status through to completion. A job's cost converts straight into a recorded expense. A Needs follow-up view flags open jobs nobody has touched for a week.

Compliance

Certificates and checks per property, tenancy and landlord: gas, EICR, EPC, alarms, licences and more.

• A derived red / amber / green status, always calculated from the expiry date and never set by hand.
• Renewing a certificate automatically retires the old one from every count.
• The compliance matrix shows the whole portfolio on one screen: a row per property, a colour-banded cell per certificate, plus each tenancy's fixed-term end date.

Inspections

Mobile-friendly, room-by-room inspections with condition ratings, the tenancy's current tenants, and photos attached on the form as you go.

Keys

Track physical key sets per property and who holds each copy: agency, tenant, contractor, landlord or staff.

Calendar

A month view of viewings, inspections, scheduled maintenance, compliance renewals and tenancy start and end dates, each linking to its record. A private iCal feed lets you subscribe from Outlook or Google Calendar; the feed respects each user's role.

Finance

Rent ledger

A rent schedule is generated automatically for each tenancy from its amount, frequency and due day.

• Charges are immutable snapshots (due date and amount), so history stays accurate.
• Record payments against a charge; overpayments are rejected. Status shows as Paid, Due, Overdue or Arrears.
• A part-period start is charged pro-rata.
• Past due dates are never back-filled, so editing a rent pattern can't create phantom arrears.

Rent changes

Rent changes take effect on a date. Future unpaid charges are rewritten, a mid-period change adds a pro-rata adjustment, and a decrease applies from the next due date (never a negative charge).

Expenses

Costs against a property, optionally linked to a tenancy or maintenance job, with categories, who bears the cost, and the supplier (a linked contractor or a free-text payee).

Cash book

The office's physical cash as one running drawer: cash in, cash out, a live cash in hand balance and a record of every banking run. Rent paid in cash flows in automatically from the rent ledger, with no double entry. The drawer can't go negative.

Management fees & VAT

• Fees are set per property as a percentage or a fixed amount, and are versioned by effective date.
• A fixed fee is charged once per property per month, so overlapping or draft tenancies can never double-charge a landlord.
• VAT is configured at agency level (registration and rate), with a per-property opt-out, and is frozen into each statement line.

Landlord statements

A per-tenancy remittance statement: rent received − management fee − VAT − landlord expenses = net due to the landlord. Statements are cash-based, counting receipts in the period.

• Draft (recalculated live) → Issued (frozen) → Sent (emailed to the landlord with a typeset A4 PDF).
• Drafts are generated automatically each month for the previous month; an ended tenancy gets a final statement.
• Download and print from the statement page, or use bulk Send all to issue and email every outstanding statement for the month.
• Issued statements never change, even if rent or fee settings are edited later.

Documents

• An agency-wide document library plus per-record tabs (properties, tenancies, landlords and so on) and a property photo gallery.
• Upload up to 20 files at a time, with per-file results; one rejected file doesn't stop the rest.
• Files are private by default and virus-scanned on upload. Downloads are access-controlled and never public.
• Executable and scriptable file types (including SVG and HTML) are blocked.
• Storage is capped per plan, and duplicate files are detected.

Dashboard & search

Dashboard

A live snapshot of the portfolio: managed properties, active tenancies, rent overdue, open maintenance, a needs-attention list of the most pressing items, compliance status, upcoming viewings and recent activity. Each item links to where the work happens.

Global search

One box in the top bar searches properties, people, tenancies, jobs and rent charges. Results respect each user's role.

CSV import

Bring master data across from a previous system: landlords, contractors, tenants, applicants and properties. Download a template, upload, preview, then confirm. Nothing is written until you approve.

Lists

Every list paginates, with a rows-per-page choice of 10, 25, 50 or 100.

Notifications & reminders

A notification bell shows live alerts filtered by role: overdue rent, compliance needing attention, stale maintenance, expiring tenancies, Right to Rent re-checks and unprotected deposits, plus support replies and product announcements. Email reminders are opt-in by category, each with its own recipient address.

Each reminder is sent once per milestone. If a date moves, its cycle restarts.

Roles & permissions

Staff see and do only what their role allows, enforced on the server. Access is set per area (Properties, Tenancies, Finance, Audit and so on) at none, view or edit.

Agency admins manage their own users and roles from Settings, with no support ticket needed.

Your data

• Export everything, any time: all records as CSV and every uploaded file, one download each, from Settings → Data & backups. Never restricted by plan.
• Audit trail: every record carries its history, with old and new values.
• Recycle bin: deleted records can be restored by the agency's own admins, along with everything deleted with them.
• Closing a workspace: the workspace becomes read-only (export stays available) before permanent deletion, and the agency can change its mind until then. See the privacy policy.

Plans & billing

New agencies started on a 14-day free trial with every feature and no card needed.

• Each plan has limits on users, org admins and storage. Hitting a limit blocks new additions with a prompt to upgrade; existing data is never lost.
• Agencies chose or switched plan and managed their card themselves via Stripe, which handled card entry and held the payment details.
• An agency's price and features were locked in when it subscribed, so later catalogue changes didn't affect existing customers.

Accounts & sign-in

• Two-step sign-in: password plus a 6-digit emailed code, with an optional "trust this device" for 30 days.
• Self-service sign-up: a short form, a 6-digit code to confirm the email, then straight in on the trial. One inbox gets one workspace.
• Personal settings: profile, password and security, and a light, dark or system theme with reduced-motion support.
• Support: two-way support tickets, an in-app Help centre and a "What's new" page of announcements.
• Private by default: the application was kept out of search engines; only the public pages were indexed.

For how data is protected, see Privacy & Security.

Public website & blog

The public site comprises a single-page marketing site, the blog and the legal pages (Privacy, Terms). The blog offers articles by topic tag, an RSS feed at /blog/feed, and search and social-sharing metadata.

Glossary