Tenants

What a tenant is

A tenant is a renter, usually a person, but it can also be a business (for commercial leases). The only thing TenantBuddy truly needs is a name and an email. The email matters: it's how the tenant receives invoices and how they sign in to their portal, so it's worth getting right.

Everything else is optional. You can keep a tenant record as light or as detailed as you like, and fill in more whenever it's useful.

What you can record on a tenant

Beyond the basics, a tenant record can hold a rich set of optional information:

• Emergency contacts — who to reach if something goes wrong.
• References — previous landlords or personal references from the application stage.
• Employment history — income and employer details captured during screening.
• Pets — type, breed, and details for pet-friendly units.
• Vehicles — make, model, and plate for parking assignments.
• Documents — ID, application paperwork, or anything else you want to keep on file.
• Notes — internal notes for your own reference.

Adding a tenant

1. Go to Rentals → Tenants and choose Add Tenant.
2. Enter the tenant's name and email. That's the minimum required to save.
3. Optionally add emergency contacts, references, employment history, pets, vehicles, documents, or notes.
4. Save. The tenant is now available to attach to a lease.

One tenant, many leases

Tenants and leases are deliberately kept separate. A single tenant can be attached to several leases over time. When they move from one of your units to another, you don't recreate them. Their full rental history travels with the tenant record, giving you a complete picture of everyone you've rented to.

Tenant portal access

Because each tenant has an email on file, they can be given access to the tenant portal, where they can view their lease, see and pay invoices, and submit requests. See the Tenant Portal guide for how that experience works and how to invite a tenant to it.

Archiving or deleting a tenant

Because a tenant's record is the anchor for their entire rental history (every lease, invoice, and payment), TenantBuddy is careful about removing one. There are two ways to take a tenant off your active list, and which one is available depends on whether they've ever been on a lease. Both actions live on the Rentals → Tenants list, in the row's action menu, and each asks you to confirm.

Deleting a tenant

Delete permanently removes the tenant. It's only available when the tenant has never been attached to a lease, for example, someone you added by mistake or a prospect who never signed. Because there's no rental history to preserve, removing them is safe and leaves nothing behind. If the tenant has no separate portal login, their contact details are removed along with the record.

Archiving a tenant

Once a tenant has been on a lease, you can no longer delete them. Their history has to stay intact for your records and reporting. Instead, when they no longer have an active lease (their lease has ended and there's nothing current), you can archive them. Archiving hides the tenant from your default Active list while keeping everything attached to them; you can still find them any time by switching the list's status filter to Archived.