Prepare and Send a Lease for eSignatures

Included in this article:

• Prepare your Lease
• Send a Lease for eSignature
• View Request Status and Cancel a Request
• eSignature request reminders

Prepare your Lease

1. Navigate to Leasing > Draft Leases
2. On the Draft Leases page, click Add lease in the upper right-hand corner
3. Under Signature Status, you will see the options: Signed and Unsigned
   • Select Unsigned to prepare a lease to send for eSignatures.
   • You can upload a copy of previously signed lease by selecting Signed. 

Fill in the lease details

1. Select the property to be leased, as well as the unit, if applicable.
2. Select the lease type: Fixed, Fixed with rollover, or At-will (month-to-month)
   • Fixed: A lease with a specific start and end date.
     When the end date occurs, the lease will move from as active to expired status, and any transactions set to post automatically (like recurring monthly rent charges or late fees) will stop posting.
   • Fixed with rollover: A lease with set start and end dates that will be rolled into an at-will lease type following the designated end date.
     Automatic transactions (like recurring monthly rent charges or late fees) will continue to be posted on a monthly basis following the end date until you manually end the lease.
   • At-will (month-to-month): A lease without a set end date.
     The lease will remain active and any automatic transactions will continue to be posted on a monthly basis until the lease has been manually ended.
3. Set the start and end date of the lease.
4. Assign a leasing agent.

Add tenants and cosigners

1. Once you’ve added the lease details, click Add tenant or cosigner to add tenant and cosigner information to the lease. You will be able to add up to the maximum number of tenants and cosigners that you have set in the lease template being used.
2. To add a tenant, select Tenant and fill in the tenant’s name and contact information. If you would like to add a tenant whose contact information is already in Buildium, check the box labeled Choose existing tenant or applicant and select the tenants you would like to add. When you are finished, click Add tenant.
3. To add a cosigner, select Cosigner and fill in the cosigner’s name and contact information. When you are finished, click Add cosigner. 
4. When you are finished, you will return to the Add a draft lease page where you will see the tenants and cosigners you have added. Should you need to edit the tenant or cosigner information, you can do so by clicking the ellipses (...) to the right of the tenant information.
5. If you would like your tenants to receive a welcome email to the Resident Center when they have signed their lease, toggle the setting to On.

Add rent and additional charges

1. Select the appropriate rent cycle for the unit. The rent cycle determines the frequency at which rent is charged. You have the option to set the rent cycle as: Daily, Weekly, Every two weeks, Monthly, Every two months, Quarterly, Every six months, Yearly
2. Add the desired rent amount to be charged each rent cycle.
3. Select the income account you would like the rent to be transferred into
4. Set the next due date when you would like your tenant to pay their rent.
5. To split the recurring rental fee into multiple charges, such as adding a recurring parking space rental fee, click Split rent charge, and fill out the appropriate information.
6. Next, you have the option to add a security deposit. Add the due date for the charge, and the amount due.
7. You can also add any additional charges, such as a pet fee, under Charges. Select the income account the fee will be deposited into, the next due date for the charge, set the amount, and the frequency of the charge.

When you have completed the lease information, click Save and prepare for eSignature to prepare the document to send for signatures. 

If you would like to save the lease information as a draft and send at a later time, click Save.

Send a lease for eSignature

Once you have added the lease information, it’s time to set up the lease to be sent.

1. Name the lease request. This name will be visible in the email sent to signers. By default, the name will autofill as “Lease Agreement - [Property name] - [Unit number]” but can be edited to your preference.
2. Select the template you would like to use for this lease.
3. Add any additional files that are not already included in your selected template, such as additional addenda specific to this lease. You can drag and drop the files into the designated area, or select ‘browse’ to find a file on your local drive.
4. When you are done, click Next.

Select the lease signers

1. Next, you will select the signers for the lease. The lease will automatically pull in the tenants, cosigners and staff members previously added in the lease information section. Signer order will be determined by the template. To change the signer order, return to the template editor.
2. You can add additional signers to the lease, such as the rental owner or additional staff members, by clicking Add signer. Select the signer type you would like to add, and click Next.
   • Note: If you have reached the maximum number of signers for a signer role set in the template, the signer role will be greyed out. To change the maximum number of signers allowed, you will need to return to the template editor.
3. Select the signer you would like to add from the list provided, and click Next.
4. You can remove signers by clicking the X to the right of the signer information box.
5. When you are done selecting the lease signers, click Next.

Review and send the lease

The merge fields within the template will be auto-filled with the lease information you have provided. 

1. Review the auto-filled leasing information for accuracy.
2. You can add unique lease information by selecting Me (now) under the Signers drop-down menu on the left-hand panel. Scroll down to the Standard Fields section, select the type of field you would like to add to the lease, and drag and drop it into the desired location on the page.
3. Once you have reviewed the lease and are ready to send, click Send.

View Request Status and Cancel a Request

1. Once the lease has been sent out for eSignatures, you will return to the draft lease summary page where you can see the lease that has been sent for signature under eSignatures documents. Only one active eSignature request can be sent per draft lease, so the ability to add an eSignature document will be disabled unless the eSignature request is canceled.
2. The status of the eSignature request will be shown to the right of the eSignature document. Statuses include:
   • Awaiting signatures: Not all signers have signed the lease
   • Fully signed: All signers have signed the lease
   • Cancellation pending: The requested cancelation is processing
   • Canceled: The request for eSignature has been canceled. Signers will not be able to sign the document.
3. To cancel a request, click Cancel under the ellipses (...) to the right of the status. Once the cancellation has gone through, the status of the eSignature request will change to Canceled.
4. You can view the details of the eSignature request and the status of each signer by clicking View under the ellipses (...) next to the status. This will take you to the list of signers, when the request was sent to the signer, and the status of each signer request. You can also see the status of the lease agreement, and the option to Cancel request.

5. To edit a signer's email address without having to cancel the entire request, select a lease that hasn't been sent for eSignature yet. Add eSignatures documents > Next.

• You can now either Add email for a signer that doesn't have an email address saved to their profile yet or edit an email address and resave. Note: the email address you enter/changed here will only apply to this eSignature request. If you want to permanently update the email, it must be updated outside of eSignatures. 

• After placing signature fields in the lease document for all signers, Send the eSignature request.
• View the status of each signer and edit email addresses if necessary, View > Edit email address > Resend the request.

• If you want to edit the email address of other signers on the request before the email goes out, you can edit and Update to save.

Automated eSignature request reminders 

Signers who have yet to provide their eSignature within three days, will automatically receive a reminder email requesting their signature. They will then receive a second reminder after 7 days of failing to sign the lease.

Manual eSignature request reminders

Manually send a signer a reminder email and avoid delaying the process of getting a document signed.

1. In eSignature document details, you will have the option to resend a reminder to sign to signers who have viewed and not yet viewed the request. Note: Since HelloSign allows 1 reminder email to be sent to a signer per hour, this rule also applies to manual reminders.
2. Select the signer(s) who hasn’t signed yet > Send Reminder.

3. You will see a confirmation message at the top of the screen notifying you that a reminder email has been sent.