Re-Lease User Manual

• Keeps every active lease, expiry date and renewal in one place.
• Surfaces upcoming renewals early and names the next action, so nothing gets overlooked.
• Moves landlords and tenants through a structured renewal workflow — enquiry, decision, response, signature and final pack.
• Replaces scattered spreadsheets, reminders and email threads with one auditable process.
• Turns a non-renewal into a sales opportunity by offering the landlord a comparative market analysis and routing their interest to the agency.

Re-Lease manages the renewal of leases you already hold. It does not draft your original lease agreement — you bring that across as a PDF or a spreadsheet row, and Re-Lease generates the renewal addendum or non-renewal notice on top of it.

• Admin (agency admin / principal) — everything an agent can do, plus: Agency Settings (details, contact, branding and logo), Team (add members, change roles, deactivate), Import portfolio (spreadsheet), Admin & Legal (template sign-off) and Subscriptions. The person who creates the agency is its first Admin.
• Agent — captures and edits leases, converts lease PDFs, runs the landlord, tenant and signature workflows, generates addenda and notices, and uses Documents, Notifications and the read-only Documents & Templates catalogue. Agents do not see Import portfolio, Admin & Legal, Team management or Subscriptions in the sidebar.
• Landlord — receives a secure link to renew or not renew and to propose terms. Landlords with their own Re-Lease account also see a landlord view of their leases.
• Tenant — receives the renewal offer by secure link, reviews the terms and accepts or declines.
• Re-Lease platform admin / support — the Re-Lease team, who assist pilot agencies and manage the platform.

Roles are set per member under Team. An Admin can promote an Agent to Admin or demote an Admin, but the agency must always keep at least one active Admin.

1. 1Create your account — open the site and choose “Sign up” (not “Sign in”). Continue with Google, or enter your email and type the one-time code that is emailed to you. Use your normal work address: this is the address your agency will be linked to.
2. 2Verify your email — if you signed up with email, the code must be entered before you can continue. Codes expire; request a new one if yours has.
3. 3Agency setup (Step 1 of 2) — enter the agency name, your name as principal, and the primary contact details. Read and tick the legal acknowledgement, which links to the Terms and the Privacy Policy, then press “Create agency”. You are now that agency's first Admin.
4. 4Step 2 of 2 — if you already manage leases, press “Import existing leases”: it takes you to Import portfolio, where you choose a spreadsheet, a single lease PDF or a batch of PDFs. Only add a brand-new lease here if you have none to bring across. “Skip — explore with sample data instead” loads clearly-badged sample leases you can remove later.
5. 5Solo or team — if it is just you, you are already the responsible agent; nothing more to do. If you have staff, add them under Team (see the next section).
6. 6Branding and contact details — Agency Settings › Branding: upload your logo, set brand name and colours; Contact & correspondence: reply-to address, support email and phone, office address for documents. Press “Save changes”.
7. 7Import your existing leases — Import portfolio (sidebar, Admins) or Leases › “Convert Existing Lease”. See the migration sections below. Nothing is created until you review and confirm each lease or import.
8. 8Find your documents — Documents & Templates (sidebar, under Help) lists every template and its approval state; Documents (the vault) holds the files filed against each lease.
9. 9Verify the register — open Leases and check addresses, dates, rent, deposit and parties on a sample of imported leases; attach any original PDFs that are still missing from the lease page. Then follow the dashboard's “Get your agency operational” checklist to the “Go live” step.

If sign-in gives you trouble, do not create a second agency to get around it — see Registration troubleshooting. A second agency cannot see the first one's leases.

Solo agent / principal

The person who creates the agency is its Admin and, by default, the responsible agent on every lease they capture or import. Team invitations are optional. On the dashboard checklist, press “Mark done” on “Invite your team” to carry on solo.

Agency with staff

1. 1Go to Team (sidebar) and fill in Full name, Email and Role — “Agent” or “Admin” — then press “Add member”.
2. 2Tell the colleague to open the site and sign in (Google or email code) with exactly that email address. On their first sign-in they are joined to your agency automatically — they must not run Agency setup again, which would create a separate agency.
3. 3A colleague who signs in with a different address (for example a personal Gmail instead of the agency address you entered) lands on Agency setup as a new principal. Have them sign out and sign in with the address you entered, or add that address under Team.
4. 4Change a role or deactivate a member from the Team list at any time. The last active Admin cannot be demoted or deactivated.

Demonstration and testing: if you use plus-aliases of one mailbox (for example name+landlord@…), sign those aliases in with the email code, never with “Continue with Google” — Google collapses an alias back to the base account, so the alias never becomes a separate member.

• “Sign up” versus “Sign in” — a brand-new principal uses Sign up. Anyone who has signed in before, and every invited staff member, uses Sign in. Using Sign up with an address that already has an account is refused — switch to Sign in.
• No code arrives — check Inbox and Spam/Junk for the Re-Lease sign-in email, confirm the address was typed correctly, then request a new code. Only the newest code works; older ones are rejected.
• “Code expired” or “invalid code” — request a fresh code and type the newest one. Codes are single-use and short-lived.
• You see “You're already set up” — your account is already linked to an agency. Press “Continue to dashboard”. There is no need to set up again.
• Invited staff see Agency setup instead of the dashboard — they signed in with a different address from the one entered under Team. Sign out, sign in with the exact address, or ask the Admin to add the address actually used.
• You are in the wrong workspace — one sign-in belongs to one agency. If you work for two agencies, you need two sign-ins (two email addresses).
• Google account picker shows the wrong account — choose the account whose email matches your Team entry, or use the email-code option instead.
• Still stuck — email hello@releaseapp.co.za from the address you are trying to use and describe what you see. Never send a sign-in code to support or anyone else; support will never ask for one.

Android (Chrome)

1. 1Open the Re-Lease website in Chrome.
2. 2Tap the menu (three dots) in the top-right corner.
3. 3Tap “Add to Home screen” or “Install app”.
4. 4Confirm — the Re-Lease icon appears on your home screen.

iPhone / iPad (Safari)

1. 1Open the Re-Lease website in Safari.
2. 2Tap the Share button (the square with an upward arrow).
3. 3Scroll down and tap “Add to Home Screen”.
4. 4Tap “Add” — the Re-Lease icon appears on your home screen.

In every route nothing is created until you confirm. Imported and converted leases start in draft, automation starts from today (no reminders for milestones that already passed), and no landlord or tenant is emailed until you act on the lease.

1. 1Open Import portfolio › “Upload a lease PDF”, or Leases › “Convert Existing Lease”.
2. 2Press “Click to choose the lease PDF”. One PDF, up to 10 MB. The file is read in your browser first; an empty, unreadable or non-PDF file is refused with a specific message before anything is uploaded.
3. 3Wait while the file is uploaded, filed and read. A text PDF is read directly. A scanned (image-only) PDF is read from the first six page images — values from scans need a closer check. A password-protected PDF, or a scan that cannot be read, opens the review form empty for manual entry; the file is still filed.
4. 4Review every field. Badges show the extraction confidence: “High confidence”, “Check this”, “Needs review”. Fill in missing or uncertain fields, and check the notice-period clause, lease start / end / termination dates, monthly rental, deposit, landlord and tenant details. Amounts written as “R12 500,00” are converted for you — confirm them.
5. 5Press “Convert lease”. Re-Lease first checks the register for a lease that looks like the same agreement (same address and unit, tenant or end date — including rows that came in from a spreadsheet).
6. 6If a match is shown, choose “Attach PDF to this lease” to file the original against the existing lease without creating a second one, or “It's a different lease — create anyway”.
7. 7The lease appears on the register in draft; the original is filed under Documents and on the lease page as the original lease. Use “Open lease & start renewal workflow” when you are ready.

AI extraction is a pre-fill, not legal approval. You remain responsible for the values you confirm.

1. 1Open Import portfolio › “Upload several PDFs” (or the “Several lease PDFs?” link on the single-PDF page).
2. 2Press “Choose lease PDFs” and select several files at once. A batch holds up to 20 PDFs, each up to 10 MB. You can add more files while the batch is still processing.
3. 3Files are processed one after another. Each row shows its own stage: Queued › Reading file › Uploading › Extracting details › “Ready for review”, or “Failed” / “Skipped” with the reason. A file that is byte-identical to another file in the batch is skipped and not uploaded twice; a second file with the same name is also refused.
4. 4A failure in one file never affects the others. Press “Retry” on a failed file, or review it manually if it uploaded but could not be read.
5. 5Press “Review” on a file. Its own review form opens with confidence badges and any warnings, exactly as in the single-PDF route. Correct the values, then press “Confirm and create draft lease”. The duplicate check runs for that file; attach to an existing lease or create anyway, as above.
6. 6Press “Back to batch” to switch files without saving. Each file is saved only by its own confirm button — there is no “import all” button, and nothing is created or linked for files you have not confirmed.
7. 7Saved rows show the lease reference, whether the original was filed, and an “Open” button. When no file is left awaiting review, the summary offers “Open the register”.

No lease created from a batch is activated automatically and no notification is sent. Leaving the page abandons unreviewed files — they are not created; re-upload them to continue.

1. 1Export your lease register or rent roll from your current system as CSV or Excel (one row per lease). Re-Lease has no built-in connector to any rental-management product and makes no promise about any particular product's export layout.
2. 2Import portfolio › “Download template” to see the columns Re-Lease understands, and compare them with your export. You do not have to rename your columns.
3. 3Press “Choose spreadsheet” (or drop the file). CSV or XLSX, up to 8 MB and 2,000 rows. The whole file is read before anything happens. A file you have already imported is recognised and refused with a link to that import's results.
4. 4Map columns — choose a source column for every required field: Property address, Landlord name, Tenant name, Lease end date and Monthly rental (ZAR). Optional: Source reference, Unit, landlord and tenant email / phone / ID numbers, Lease start date, Termination date, Deposit, Commission %, Responsible agent email.
5. 5Validate & review — every row is checked. Errors (missing required values, unrecognised dates, non-numeric rent) are listed per row. Existing landlords, tenants and properties that match by email or name are shown so you can confirm whether a row refers to a person already on your book or a new one.
6. 6Preview, then press Import. The import is all-or-nothing: if any row is still invalid, nothing is created. Imported rows create landlords, properties, tenants and leases together.
7. 7Results — the imported / error counts, the per-row report (also downloadable as CSV) and the batch in Import history.
8. 8Attach originals — a register export brings the data, not the contracts. Use the lease page's “Attach Original Lease” or the PDF routes (which detect the imported row as a match and offer “Attach PDF to this lease”).

Field rules

• Dates: YYYY-MM-DD, DD/MM/YYYY or a native Excel date. Lease end date is used as the termination date when none is given.
• Amounts: plain numbers in rand (for example 12500 or 12500.00). Currency symbols and thousand separators are stripped; a decimal comma (12500,00) is accepted.
• Source reference: your own lease or property reference. Rows with a reference already imported are flagged as duplicates during validation.
• Responsible agent email must belong to a member of your agency; it defaults to you.
• Historical leases: rows whose end date has passed are imported as ended history and start no renewal timeline. Active leases start their timeline from today.
• Duplicates: the same file cannot be imported twice; rows that match a lease already on the register are flagged for you to resolve before import.

Known issue (October 2026): some Excel workbooks saved by certain systems failed with a plain “import_failed” message. A fix that reads these files and reports a clear reason is built and awaiting release. If you hit this, save the sheet as CSV and import that.

1. 1Leases › “New Lease”.
2. 2Enter the property address, lease start / end / termination dates, monthly rental and deposit, landlord and tenant details, and the responsible agent.
3. 3Save. The lease appears on the register and in the renewal pipeline with its next action calculated.
4. 4Open the lease and use “Attach Original Lease” to file the signed PDF as the original.

Uploading your logo

1. 1Agency Settings › Branding › “Choose image”. PNG, JPEG or WebP, up to 2 MB. The file type is checked from its contents, not its name.
2. 2A preview appears. Tick where to use it: “Workspace & portals”, “Compact (sidebar)”, “Generated documents (PDF)” and “Emails” (all ticked by default).
3. 3Press “Upload & use this logo”. The upload is saved immediately — it does not wait for “Save changes”.
4. 4Reload the page: the sidebar and workspace header show the new logo. Generated PDFs use the “Generated documents (PDF)” logo; emails use the “Emails” logo and need an absolute https address (the uploaded file provides one).

Other branding and contact fields

• Brand name (leave blank to use the agency name), dashboard title, workspace tagline, portal title, primary / secondary / accent colours, and the four logo URL fields if you host images yourself.
• Contact & correspondence: primary email, phone, support email and phone, “Reply-to for renewal emails” (replies from landlords and tenants land here), email sender name, email footer text, office address for documents.
• These fields are saved only when you press “Save changes” (top or bottom of the page).

• Register review — each lease names its next action and flags what needs attention.
• Landlord renewal decision — the landlord chooses to renew or not.
• Tenant response — the tenant accepts or declines the offer.
• Signature stage — parties sign digitally.
• Final pack / non-renewal notice — the outcome is documented.

Each lease shows a clear “next action” so you always know what to do next, and an “at risk” status flags renewals that need attention before a deadline slips.

1. 1The agent opens the lease in the landlord workflow and clicks “Send secure link”. This is a required action — nothing reaches the landlord until it is done.
2. 2The landlord receives the secure, single-use link and selects renew or do not renew.
3. 3If renewing, the landlord submits the proposed rental, deposit, new termination date and a tenant response deadline.
4. 4If not renewing, the landlord is offered a comparative market analysis, and the non-renewal workflow begins.

Throughout, the agency keeps full visibility and a complete audit trail of what was proposed and when. An agent may also record the landlord's instruction in the app on the landlord's behalf (for example from a phone call). That is an agency-recorded decision: it does not send the landlord anything, is not evidence that the landlord received or agreed to it, and does not issue the tenant's offer — the secure-link flow does both.

1. 1The landlord chooses not to renew on their secure link.
2. 2The same form offers them a comparative market analysis — one optional question, answered in the same submission.
3. 3If they accept, they can leave a contact number, which is captured alongside the request.
4. 4The request is recorded against the lease, and your team is notified separately from the operational non-renewal notice.
5. 5Your agency contacts the landlord and prepares the analysis.

Re-Lease captures and routes the landlord's interest. It does not assess any property, never sends the landlord a price or estimate, and does not generate a report — the analysis is prepared by your own agents, using your agency's process.

1. 1The tenant receives the renewal offer.
2. 2The tenant reviews the proposed terms.
3. 3The tenant accepts or declines.
4. 4If the tenant accepts, the lease moves to the signature stage.
5. 5If the tenant declines, the non-renewal workflow begins.

Proposed terms only become part of the lease once the tenant accepts — so a declined offer never changes the existing lease record.

• The renewal addendum must exist before any signature link is issued — generate it from Signatures › “Generate Renewal Addendum”.
• Landlords sign first; tenants sign after the landlord signatures are in.
• A signature made by the party through their own secure link is recorded as “via secure link”. A signature an agent records in the app is recorded as “recorded by agency staff”: it captures who recorded it and when, but it is not independent proof that the party signed.
• Each signature captures the signer's name, email, role, the exact document version, the time in SAST and the connection details the server observed for that request, using the E-Signature Consent wording.
• The addendum and the final signed pack are produced from the same recorded terms — the terms in force before the renewal and the terms the tenant accepted. If those terms change after signing opens, every signature is superseded and the parties sign the new version.
• Once every party has signed, finalisation generates the signed renewal addendum (final pack) automatically.

Where to look

• Documents & Templates (sidebar › Help) — start from a Re-Lease base template or upload your own document; edit the wording; download as Word (.docx) or PDF. Agency-level templates are managed by agency admins; every member can read and download them.
• Each lease page › “Documents & templates for this lease” — make a lease-specific copy of an agency template or base template (any member), filled from that lease's details.
• Admin & Legal (sidebar, Admins) — the Legal Template Register with “Review & Sign-Off” for the wording the automated renewal addendum and non-renewal notice use. That register is separate from the templates below.
• Documents (sidebar) — the vault: original leases, generated addenda and notices, downloads. Also shown on each lease page.

Re-Lease base templates (drafts)

• Residential lease agreement; renewal addendum; lease variation addendum; non-renewal / termination notice; incoming and outgoing inspection reports; landlord mandate; commission confirmation; privacy notice and consent (POPIA).
• Every base template is a DRAFT awaiting review. Nobody has approved them. Each has a “Preview & sources” page listing the legislation it was checked against and open questions for your reviewer.
• Base wording stays unchanged on the platform. “Use this template” makes a private copy for your agency; changes you make never affect the base or any other agency.

Your own documents

• Upload a Word .docx (preferred) — headings, numbered clauses, lists, tables and page breaks are kept; bold/italic, images and your original header/footer are not, and the import notes say what was dropped. The original file is kept for download.
• Upload an unsigned text PDF — converted to a clearly marked working copy (“Converted from PDF — review”). Scanned, password-protected and signed PDFs are not converted; use the lease page's existing-lease import for signed leases.
• Branding is applied from Agency settings only: logo, brand name, colours, registered entity, registration, VAT and FFC numbers, address and contact details. Anything not saved there appears as [TO COMPLETE: …] in the document — nothing is ever guessed.

Editing and downloading

1. 1Open the document. The Edit tab lists the blocks (headings, paragraphs, numbered clauses, lists, tables, signature panels, notes): change the text, reorder, add or remove blocks.
2. 2Placeholders such as {{agency.name}}, {{lease.propertyAddress}}, {{tenant.name}} and {{today}} are filled from your saved details on preview and download.
3. 3Save. The “Still to complete” panel lists every field that is not on file. Preview shows the filled-in document with those markers highlighted.
4. 4Download Word (.docx) to continue editing outside Re-Lease, or PDF for a fixed copy. Both carry your agency header and footer, and a footer status line (draft base wording, customised by your agency, or converted from PDF).

Approval and wording state: adding your branding does not approve anything. A copy stays marked “Re-Lease draft wording — not approved” until you change the words, after which it is “Wording customised by your agency”. A lease-specific copy edited on a lease never changes the agency-level template it came from. Have your agency's reviewer check any document before it is issued to a landlord or tenant.

The automated renewal workflow (generated addendum and non-renewal notice) still uses the sign-off register under Admin & Legal, not these templates.

• Onboarding welcome.
• Lease captured confirmation.
• Landlord enquiry.
• Tenant offer.
• Signature request.
• Final pack issued.

Each notification shows a status. “Sent” means the email provider accepted the message; “Delivered” or “Bounced” appear only when the provider reports back; “Failed” means it was not accepted. A sent status does not prove the recipient opened or received the email. If a landlord or tenant says nothing arrived, check the address on the lease and ask them to look in Spam. Messages that failed to send are retried by the renewal engine on its next run; a message already marked sent is not sent again automatically — contact support if the party still has nothing.

• “Get your agency operational” checklist with a link for each step (details, branding, templates, team, import, first lease, reminders, go live).
• Renewal pipeline across all your leases.
• Today's actions — what needs doing now.
• At-risk leases that need attention.
• Notifications and recent activity.
• Documents for quick access.

• Records are agency-scoped — one agency cannot see another agency's data.
• Documents are kept in private storage; only your agency's members and the parties to a lease can download them.
• A full audit trail records key actions.
• The platform is designed with POPIA in mind.
• User roles and access control limit who can see and do what.

Common issues

• Can't sign in or landed on Agency setup unexpectedly — see Registration and sign-in troubleshooting above.
• Can't find a lease — check it was captured under your agency, and search by property address.
• Landlord didn't receive the email — confirm the landlord's email on the lease and ask them to check Spam. Check the Notifications page for a failed or bounced entry and its reason.
• Tenant didn't receive the offer — confirm the tenant's email and that the landlord has submitted their decision.
• PDF refused before upload — the message names the reason: empty file, not a PDF, or over 10 MB. Re-export the PDF from its source and try again.
• “Scanned PDF — manual entry needed” or “Password-protected PDF” — the file is filed, but the details were not read. Remove the password or type the details into the review form.
• Spreadsheet refused — over 8 MB / 2,000 rows, a file already imported, or an Excel workbook the current release cannot read (save as CSV).
• Logo not showing in emails or PDFs — re-upload with the “Emails” and “Generated documents (PDF)” uses ticked, or paste an absolute https image URL in the corresponding URL field.
• Signature link not available — the renewal addendum must be generated first; landlords sign before tenants.

If a problem persists, contact support at hello@releaseapp.co.za.

• Email support: hello@releaseapp.co.za
• The Re-Lease platform admin / support team assists pilot agencies directly.
• Send feedback or report an issue by email and our team will log and follow up on it.

During the controlled soft-launch we work closely with pilot agencies, so your feedback directly shapes the product.