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TurboTenant Lease Guide

Easily create a TurboTenant lease by creating a lease profile, adding tenants, including rental details, and sending it out for signatures.

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Written by Daisy
Updated this week

Understanding Lease Profiles vs. Lease Agreements in TurboTenant

In TurboTenant, it's important to know the difference between a lease profile and a lease agreement:

  • A lease profile is an internal organizational tool. It helps you:

    • Connect tenants to a property

    • Set up rent charges and payment options

    • Store documents like your signed lease

    • Manage your tenants

  • A lease agreement is the actual legal document that outlines the rental terms between you and your tenant. When you create or upload a lease agreement, this is typically stored within your lease profile.

💡 Creating a lease profile does not create a legal lease agreement. To manage everything in one place, you can upload your completed and signed lease agreement to the lease profile. This keeps your tenant info, payments, and documents neatly organized and accessible.

We currently offer state-specific lease agreements for many states; however, a lease profile in TurboTenant does NOT create a written agreement or legal document.


Add Your Rental Property and Build Out the Lease

When you add a rental property, TurboTenant automatically creates a draft lease for you. To continue building it out, go to the Leases tab and fill in key details like lease terms, rent amount, and tenant information.


The Leases Tab

When you first land in the Leases tab, you'll see all the active and upcoming leases you have. Each lease profile will display the tenants on the lease, the property address, the start & end date of the lease, a payments tab, and any documents you've uploaded. If you do not see the Payments tab, this means you have not created charges for your lease.


How to Add a New Lease

Step 1:
Go to the Leases tab in your dashboard.

Step 2:
Click the Add New Lease button.

Step 3:
Fill out the Basic Lease Information, including:

  • Rental property

  • Lease nickname

  • Lease start and end dates

  • Any additional required fields

Step 4:
Click Add Lease to create a draft version of the lease.

Step 5:
Choose your next step to complete your lease profile:

  • Create a new lease agreement

  • Start collecting rent by creating monthly or one-time charges for your tenant(s)

  • Request an electronic signature

  • Upload and store an existing lease document

  • Add your tenants by converting an applicant into a tenant or adding a New Tenant.

💡 If you have more than one tenant and they are not roommates, you can create multiple leases to house each tenant(s) information!


When creating a new lease profile, you can streamline the process by copying over existing agreements into the profile. This ensures all relevant information is centralized, and you can then update specific details, such as the lease’s end date, to reflect the new term. To learn how to copy an existing lease agreement from one lease into another, click here.


Managing Your Lease

To view details about a lease and its tenants, click on the lease you’d like to open. Inside the lease profile, you’ll see all tenants, uploaded documents, the condition report, and the Home Guide associated with the lease. To view payments for that lease, click the Payments tab (next to Summary). Need help setting up charges? Check out our Rent Payment Guide for step-by-step instructions!


Uploading Documents

Keep track of lease-specific documents in one place! Add a signed copy of your lease document (or get one signed electronically!), move-in/out checklists, condition report, and any other documents you may need handy. These documents can be shared with your tenants, or you can keep the documents private!

💡 If you share the document with your tenant, they will be notified by email and will be able to view any shared documents within their tenant portal in the Documents section.

Please note, the following file types are supported for uploading to your leases: PDF, docx, doc, txt, rtf, xls, png, jpeg.


Adding or Removing Tenants

When you first create a lease, you will see the option to add renters to the lease. If you need to add more renters, you can do so by clicking Add above your current tenant.

If you have existing tenants that do not need to go through the application process, click here to learn how to add a tenant.

To add tenants from the Archived Tenants section:

  1. Navigate to the Archived Tenants section in TurboTenant.

  2. Find and select the tenant profile you wish to restore.

  3. Associate the tenant with the desired Lease Profile. This ensures accurate updates to the tenant’s information and access.

To remove a tenant from the lease, click the trash icon within their tenant box and Remove From Lease OR Move Out Tenant. You can also click the tenant's name and if they applied, you can select Convert to Applicant (these options depend on whether the person had applied on TurboTenant or was added manually.)

If a renter is moving out of your rental property or your lease has ended, you can archive the lease profile and tenant. To do so, click Edit in the upper-right, then change the lease end date to today or a previous date and save the changes. This will automatically end the lease and move your tenant to a Past Tenant status.


Editing Lease Settings

Click Edit on the upper-right to open the Lease Settings dialogue (image below) where you'll be able to Edit Term (dates), lease nickname, rent amount, security deposit, or whether or not you'd like to allow partial payments or enable automatic payments. Leases are converted to Past Leases on their end date unless you edit the end date to renew the lease.

If you edit your lease settings, your tenants will NOT be notified of any changes you've made.


Editing Lease Term Date

To edit the dates, you'll want to click the Edit button, then click Edit Term. In this dialogue, you'll be able to enter the start date & end date, switch month-to-month and decide what will occur after the lease term ends.


Ending Your Lease

Has your tenant given notice or is it move-out time? You'll want to click on the Edit button, then click Edit Term to change the end date of the lease to today or a previous date. You can also scroll to the end and click Convert To Past Lease. The lease will automatically move to the Past bin and the tenants associated with the lease will become Past Tenants (if they are not already attached to a new lease).

Once your lease has reached its end date, it will automatically be archived in the Past tab which you can access by clicking Leases and then Past. This is where you'll find all past leases.

No notifications are sent to your tenant when these changes are made.


Renewing Your Lease

Has your tenant decided to renew the lease or re-sign one with new roommates? If so you can renew the lease instead of creating a new one. Simply click Edit, then click Edit Term and change the lease end date to a future date. Note: This will not create a renewal lease agreement document.

To extend the lease agreement, check out how you can Create a Lease Addendum! You'll want to make sure you update the Term Dates when you are finished!

If you do not renew the lease, your tenants will automatically be moved to past tenants on the lease end date. You can still find their information by clicking See Past Tenants in the Tenants tab.


Deleting a Lease

To delete a lease profile, you'll want to click the Edit button to open the Lease Settings dialogue, then scroll to the end and click Delete Lease.

  • Any payments currently in transit will still be paid

  • Any unpaid charges will not be payable

  • Any in-progress e-sign requests will be canceled

  • Any documents will be deleted (including signed documents)

  • Any check-ins will be deleted

  • Any tenants on this lease will be archived unless they are part of another active or past lease

  • All notifications related to this lease will stop

Please note: some states require landlords to keep a record of communication with tenants even if they did not move in. We recommend that you archive the lease profile, to store any tenants, documents, and communications within Past Leases for access down the road.

You can archive the lease by simply updating the lease term dates. If the lease end date is in the past, it will move to the Past tab (unless you've indicated it's a month-to-month lease).

By deleting the lease, this action cannot be undone and is not recommended if you have a signed lease agreement and any payment history that you would like to reference later. If you want to keep any lease history, convert the lease to a past lease instead.

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