Guide · Agency practice
What a landlord statement should actually contain
Most landlord statements in this market are a figure and a promise. A properly formed one answers every question a landlord could ask without anyone having to pick up the phone — and it does it in a shape that has been standard in accounting for four hundred years.
The shape: it is a running account, not a summary
A statement is not a report on the month. It is an account between two parties — you and your landlord — that opens at a balance, moves, and closes at a balance. The closing balance of March must be the opening balance of April. If it isn't, one of the two is wrong, and nobody can tell you which.
That single property is what separates a statement from a screenshot. It is also the fastest test you can run on any agent's reporting: ask for two consecutive months and check that they join.
- Opening
- The balance carried in, with its date
- In
- Rent collected, per unit, with dates
- Out
- Deductions, each named and dated
- Paid
- What was remitted to the landlord, and when
- Closing
- What remains held on their behalf
What belongs on it
Every line should be something the landlord could, in principle, drill into. A statement that shows Rent — 412,000 without being able to break that into the eleven receipts behind it is asking for trust it hasn't earned.
- Rent collected — not rent billed. These are different numbers and conflating them is the most common single error in this market. Billed is what you invoiced; collected is what arrived. A statement showing billed rent as though it were money in hand is misleading even when it's honest.
- Arrears — stated separately and aged, so the landlord sees what is outstanding rather than inferring it from a gap.
- Repairs and costs — with the invoice date, the supplier and the unit. "Maintenance 18,400" is not a line item, it's a shrug.
- Withholding deducted — the amount and the period, because the landlord needs it at filing time and asking for it in March is too late.
- Management fee and any VAT on it — shown as separate lines, because they are separate things with different treatment.
- Payments to the landlord — the date it left and the reference, so it can be matched against their own bank record.
The order matters, and it is where money goes missing
Deductions are not interchangeable. Applied in the wrong order they produce a different net figure, and the difference is not small over a year.
Withholding is computed on gross rent. The management fee is computed on rent excluding VAT — residential rent and a management service are two independent supplies with separate VAT tests, and computing your fee on a VAT-inclusive figure quietly inflates it every month. VAT charged on that fee is a liability owed onward from the moment it is charged; it is never the agency's income, and treating it as income overstates earnings and understates what is owed.
Two competent people can start from the same rent roll, apply the same rates in a different order, and disagree by thousands. That is not a rounding problem.
Arrears inherited from a previous agent have usually already had withholding applied. Loaded into a new system as ordinary new charges, the deduction runs a second time and the landlord is short — often for months before anyone notices, because every individual statement looks internally consistent.
Five signs of a statement you can't trust
- Consecutive months that don't join. March's closing is not April's opening. Ask why once; if the answer is a recalculation, the account is not being kept.
- Round numbers with no source. Real rent collection produces untidy figures. Tidy ones have usually been arrived at rather than recorded.
- A figure that changed since last time. If a past month's number is different today from what it was when issued, something was edited in place, and there is no record of what it said before.
- Rent billed presented as rent received. Check whether the arrears line reconciles against it. Often it can't.
- "I'll work it out and call you back." Not dishonesty — usually it means the statement is assembled by a person each month rather than produced by a system, which means it can be assembled differently next month.
What to ask your agent for
Three requests, all reasonable, all quick for a well-run agency and awkward for a badly run one:
- Two consecutive monthly statements for the same property.
- Your arrears, aged, per unit.
- Withholding deducted on your behalf, by period, for the last tax year.
The third is the sharpest. It is the one most agents cannot produce quickly, and it is the one you will need whether or not you ever change agent.
None of the above is a high bar, and being able to answer all three on demand is a genuine commercial advantage. Landlords rarely leave over software. They leave when they stop trusting the number.
Statements produced by the record, not rebuilt each month
Any period, on demand, from the same entries every other figure comes from. Every line opens to the entries behind it.
See it on your own numbers