When is a lease renewal officially late?

There are two different answers, and conflating them is what makes renewals fail.

The statutory answer: where the Consumer Protection Act applies, the expiry notice must be given no fewer than 40 business days before the fixed term ends. Once that date passes, the window described in section 14(2)(d) has closed and it cannot be reopened.

The operational answer comes earlier. A renewal that has not had a landlord instruction by 60 business days before termination is already compressing every step after it, because the tenant still has to receive an offer, consider it, and sign. By the 30 business day tenant offer deadline there is very little slack left, and by the 21 business day signature stage a single unresponsive co-signer can run the lease past its date.

Re-Lease marks a lease as at risk on the operational timeline rather than the statutory one, so that the warning arrives while there is still something to be done about it.

Disclaimer: This is general information about South African lease-renewal procedure, not legal advice. Dates are calculated from the information you provide and from published public holidays. Check them against your lease and take your own legal advice before acting.