Case study · Real estate
A lettings business that does not live in an inbox
Lettings agencies run on email: viewings, applications, references, repairs and rent arrears all in the same thread. We built a platform where each of those is a thing with a state, not a message somebody has to remember to answer.
Engagement · Build & phased rollout
A lettings platform introduced one process at a time.
- Industry
- Real estate & property management
- Solution
- Lettings management platform
- Engagement model
- Product team
- Market stage
- Operational rollout
- Client
- A lettings agency, Australia
- Scope
- Custom software development
- Platform
- Web · landlord & tenant portals
- Users
- Agents, landlords, tenants, contractors
Outcomes
What changed when the inbox stopped being the system
Each figure below replaces something that used to live in one person's email.
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75%
Faster maintenance resolution
A repair becomes a job with an owner, a contractor and a state, instead of an email thread waiting for someone to come back from leave.
From tenant report to job completed
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60%
Fewer inbound emails to the agency
Landlords and tenants answer their own questions through the portals, which is where most of the agency's inbox used to come from.
Measured against inbound email volume before rollout
-
40%
Reduction in rent arrears
Arrears surface the day they occur rather than at month end, and chasing early is the whole of arrears management.
Measured across managed tenancies after rent tracking went live
Context
The situation before the platform
Why a lettings agency stops scaling long before it runs out of properties.
The business
A residential lettings agency managing properties on behalf of landlords: viewings, tenancies, rent, repairs and renewals.
The starting point
Viewings, applications, references, contracts, deposits, rent, repairs and renewals — for hundreds of properties, four kinds of people, almost entirely by email.
The trigger
When one person is on leave the work stops, because the state of it lives in their mailbox. The agency could not grow past the memory of its staff.
What they wanted
Each of those processes turned into something with an owner, a state and a history: visible to whoever needs it, and not dependent on one person remembering.
Constraints
Four audiences with very different rights over the same record · tenancy paperwork carries legal weight and deadlines · maintenance involves outside contractors who will not log in · money moves between tenant, agency, landlord and contractor.
System
What it runs at today
The platform as it runs across the agency.
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1
Record per property
Tenancies, documents, compliance dates and history in one place
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2
Portals
Landlord and tenant, opened only once the internal data was trustworthy
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0
Logins required from contractors
Contractors work from a job link rather than an account
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5
Processes moved off email
Viewings, tenancies, maintenance, rent and compliance
The engineering problem
Four problems in replacing an inbox
Email is a bad system that is very hard to replace, because it is also extremely convenient.
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Contractors will never log into your software
A plumber with six jobs today is not creating an account on an agency's platform. Any workflow that requires them to is a workflow that reverts to phone calls within a week.
What we did
Contractors work from a single link: the job, what is needed, and somewhere to confirm and upload an invoice. No account, no password, no app.
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Four audiences need very different rights over one record
A tenant, a landlord, an agent and a contractor all have legitimate business with the same property, and almost nothing they should each see is the same. Getting this wrong exposes one client's affairs to another.
What we did
Role-scoped access designed from the record outwards, so what each audience sees is derived from their relationship to the property rather than configured per screen.
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Compliance dates have legal consequences
Safety certificates and inspections carry statutory deadlines. Missing one is not an operational slip — it can invalidate a tenancy action or carry a penalty.
What we did
Compliance dates held on the property with reminders ahead of expiry, so the deadline is the system's responsibility rather than an agent's memory.
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A single launch would have been rejected
Asking an agency to move every process into new software on one day means the busiest people fall back to email in the first difficult hour, and the rollout is dead.
What we did
One process at a time, starting with maintenance — the most painful and most visible — so the agency saw the benefit before the harder migrations began.
Architecture
How it fits together
Simplified — the shape of the system rather than every service in it.
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Agent workspace
- Web application
- Property & tenancy records
- Workflow views
The agency's own workspace, where properties, tenancies and the work in progress against them all live.
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Portals
- Landlord portal
- Tenant portal
- Contractor job links
Three outside audiences reaching the same records with different rights — and contractors reaching a single job without an account at all.
-
Services
- Workflow engine
- Document storage
- Reminders
- Rent ledger
Each process as a workflow with states rather than a sequence of emails, with documents and deadlines attached to the property.
-
Money
- Rent tracking
- Landlord statements
- Contractor invoices
One ledger producing both the arrears view and the landlord statement, so the agency stops reconciling two sets of figures.
The rollout order was part of the architecture. Maintenance first, portals last — because a portal onto data the agency does not yet trust makes the agency look worse than having no portal at all.
Solutions
The lettings cycle, as software
The property is the spine. Everything — a viewing, a tenancy, a repair, a payment — hangs off it and keeps its own history.
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Property and tenancy records
One record per property carrying its tenancies, documents, compliance dates and history, so nothing depends on which agent handled it.
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Viewings and applications
Viewings booked against agent availability, applications tracked through referencing with each stage visible to everyone entitled to see it.
-
Maintenance workflow
A repair reported by a tenant becomes a job with a state, a contractor, a cost and an audit trail from report to invoice.
-
Rent and arrears
Rent tracked automatically, arrears surfaced the day they occur, with landlord statements produced from the same ledger.
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Landlord and tenant portals
Landlords see their properties, statements and approvals; tenants see their tenancy, documents and repairs — each without emailing the agency.
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Compliance dates
Safety certificates, inspections and renewals tracked with reminders, because these are deadlines with legal consequences.
Key capabilities
What it does day to day
Six capabilities across the lettings cycle.
| Capability | Runs | Refresh | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Viewings & applications | Agent | Per enquiry | Viewings booked against agent availability, applications tracked through referencing |
| Property & tenancy records | Agent | Continuous | Tenancies, documents, compliance dates and history on one record per property |
| Maintenance | Tenant-reported | Per job | A repair becomes a job with a contractor, a cost and a trail from report to invoice |
| Rent & arrears | Automatic | Daily | Rent tracked automatically, arrears surfaced the day they occur |
| Landlord & tenant portals | Self-service | On demand | Statements, documents and repair status without emailing the agency |
| Compliance dates | Automatic | Ahead of expiry | Certificates, inspections and renewals tracked with reminders |
Integrations
How the moving parts plug in
Four audiences, one property record, and a set of rules about who may see what.
The four audiences
- AgentsThe full working record
- LandlordsTheir properties and statements
- TenantsTheir tenancy and repairs
- ContractorsOne job, by link
Access & workflow layer
- Relationship rulesDerived from the property, not per screen
- Workflow statesEvery process has an owner and a state
- RemindersDeadlines owned by the system
Property records
- Tenancies
- Documents
- Maintenance jobs
- Rent ledger
Because the rent ledger produces both the arrears view and the landlord statement, a landlord asking "where is my money" gets the same answer the agency is already looking at.
Security & data
What protects landlords, tenants and their data
The platform holds tenancy agreements, identity documents and payment histories for people who did not choose the software.
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Relationship-based access
What each audience sees follows from their relationship to the property, so a landlord cannot reach another landlord's records.
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Document handling
Identity documents and tenancy agreements are stored against the tenancy with access limited to those party to it.
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Contractor links
A contractor link grants exactly one job and nothing else, and expires with it — which is why no contractor account is needed.
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Recorded actions
Maintenance and tenancy actions carry who did what and when, which is what settles a dispute months later.
The brief
Everything important is in somebody's inbox
A lettings agency handles viewings, applications, references, contracts, deposits, rent, repairs and renewals — for hundreds of properties, four kinds of people, and almost entirely by email. When someone is on leave, the work stops, because the state of it is in their mail.
The agency wanted each of those turned into something with an owner, a state and a history: visible to whoever needs it, and not dependent on one person remembering.
- Viewings and applications tracked, not remembered
- Tenancy documents and deposits in the property record
- Maintenance with a trail from report to invoice
- Rent monitored automatically, with arrears surfaced early
What a lettings platform has to respect
- 01Four audiences with very different rights over the same record
- 02Tenancy paperwork carries legal weight and deadlines
- 03Maintenance involves outside contractors who will not log in
- 04Money moves between tenant, agency, landlord and contractor
Process
We replaced the inbox one process at a time
A single launch would have failed. Each process moved out of email only once the software was demonstrably better at it.
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Mapping the cycle
The full lettings cycle documented from enquiry to renewal, marking every point where the state of something lived only in a person's memory or mailbox.
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Maintenance first
We started with repairs — the most painful, most visible process — so the agency saw the benefit before the harder work began.
-
Tenancies and documents
Property and tenancy records with documents, deposits and compliance dates, replacing a shared drive and a spreadsheet.
-
Rent and statements
Rent tracking and landlord statements from one ledger, so the agency stopped reconciling two sets of figures.
-
Portals last
Tenant and landlord portals opened only once the internal records were trustworthy, because a portal onto bad data makes things worse.
Technology
A web platform with three audiences outside the office
One application, with separate portals over the same records and strict rules about who sees what.
Application
- Web application
- Agent workspace
- Design system
Portals
- Landlord portal
- Tenant portal
- Contractor job links
Core
- Property and tenancy records
- Document storage
- Workflow engine
- Reminders
Money
- Rent ledger
- Landlord statements
- Contractor invoices
Business impact
What changed for the agency
Three things that followed from taking processes out of email.
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Leave stopped stopping work
Because state lives in the system rather than a mailbox, someone else can pick up any job.
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Arrears found the same day
Rent tracked automatically surfaces a missed payment immediately rather than at month end.
-
Fewer inbound emails
Landlords and tenants answer their own questions through the portals, which is where most of the agency's email used to go.
The result
Every repair, tenancy and payment has an owner and a history
Repairs move from a tenant's report to a contractor's invoice with a trail. Tenancies, documents and compliance dates live on the property rather than in a drive. Rent is tracked and arrears appear the day they happen.
Landlords and tenants answer their own questions through portals, which is where most of the agency's email went.
- One record per property and tenancy
- Maintenance with a trail from report to invoice
- Rent and arrears tracked automatically
- Landlord and tenant portals over the same records
What we would do again in property
- 01Start with maintenance — it proves the value fastest
- 02Put compliance dates in the system, with reminders
- 03Give contractors a link, never a login
- 04Open portals only once the internal data is trustworthy
Verified reviews
What clients say about our custom software work
Verified reviews from clients of ours on similar work, published on Clutch. They are not from this project.
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