How it works

Running your homes

1. 1

   Add your homes

   Postcode first, then house or flat. We find the council and look up its licensing schemes, saying plainly where we can't confirm one for your address, and look up the energy certificate on the official register, so each home starts with its legal checklist and as many dates as we can fill in for you.

2. 2

   Tenants and rent

   Record who lives there, the rent and the day it is due. Payments you log show what has come in, what is owed and how late, and each tenancy's rent review says when the next notice can go out.

3. 3

   Repairs become jobs

   A tenant reports a problem on your page, with no account to make. It arrives as a numbered job on that home. Send it to a contractor by email; they answer with one tap, and the job stays open until it is done and paid.

4. 4

   Your own page

   Your name, logo and colour, at yourname.datestone.io. Tenants report problems there, anyone can see your homes to let, and you can put the report form on your own website too.

5. 5

   Emails when it matters

   An emergency, a report a tenant emails in, and a reply or a contractor's answer on an urgent job are emailed to you as they arrive. The rest comes in a few short emails, each when it matters. A gas or electrical safety check that runs out where somebody lives, or insurance that lapses, comes the morning it happens and every week until it is sorted. Before each renewal there is a heads-up, months ahead for a certificate, a licence or a mortgage deal and a month ahead for insurance, then a last nudge a week before. On the first Monday of every month a short round-up comes, even when all is clear. A tenant's routine report, or a reply on your other jobs, comes in one short email the next morning. You can have Recommended, Weekly (a short list on Mondays too) or Only urgent. The first kind, a safety check that runs out where somebody lives or insurance that lapses, is always sent. So is a gas or electrical safety check that runs out at a home that may be lived in, on the day and two weeks later.

6. 6

   Everyone who helps

   Invite the person who runs things day to day, or an accountant who can see everything and change nothing.

The law, built in

1. 7

   Dates do the tracking

   Most legal checks come down to one date: the one on the certificate or the check. Add it once, in about 30 seconds, and the checklist works out what's due, what's in date, and when to email you. No date yet? That item reads “Needed” and asks for the date. Nothing is ever assumed fine.

2. 8

   Paper on file

   A phone photo of the certificate is fine. Everything you file sits with its home in Documents. On the Landlord and Portfolio plans, one click builds a home's Compliance Pack for a council, a lender or a deposit dispute: a dated PDF of the home's duties, each with its status, due date and official source.

3. 9

   We watch the law

   Every official source behind a rule is re-read each week, a few every night, and every link we cite is checked every night. Once a month, each quote our pages print is looked for again, word for word, on its official page. When something changes, the new wording is matched word for word against the official text and confirmed by a second, independent check before your checklist or a reminder changes. If a source goes stale or we can't read it, we say so rather than stay quiet.

4. 10

   You stay the judge

   Datestone is a tool for running your homes, not legal advice. Every rule links its official source, every reminder says why it was sent, and where we can't verify something, we say so plainly.