Property Management Intake Forms & Client Questionnaires

A property owner calls your office because they just inherited a four-unit building, they live three states away, and they have no idea what the current tenants are paying, whether the leases are month-to-month or fixed-term, or when the boiler was last serviced. Another owner walks in with a 120-unit apartment complex, an on-site maintenance staff of four, an HOA board that sends violation notices weekly, and a previous management company that left behind a filing cabinet of disorganized paperwork. Both need property management. Neither can be onboarded with the same two-paragraph intake form your competitor uses. The Property Management intake form captures the full picture — property details, owner expectations, existing lease terms, maintenance history, insurance coverage, and reporting preferences — so your management agreement starts on solid ground instead of a foundation of assumptions.

The form begins with property identification and classification: residential (single-family, duplex, triplex, fourplex, garden apartment, mid-rise, high-rise), commercial (office, retail, industrial, mixed-use), or vacation/short-term rental. It captures the street address, unit count, total square footage, year built, lot size, current assessed value, and tax parcel number. It records the property’s current condition — whether it needs immediate capital repairs, has deferred maintenance issues, or has code violations outstanding. For multi-unit buildings, it captures the unit mix (studio, one-bedroom, two-bedroom, three-bedroom) and current occupancy rate, because a building at 60% occupancy tells you something very different about the owner’s situation than one at 98%.

Owner Objectives and Management Scope

Not every property owner wants the same thing from a management company. Some want full-service management: tenant placement, rent collection, maintenance coordination, financial reporting, lease renewals, and eviction proceedings. Others want tenant placement only — find the tenant, execute the lease, and hand the keys back. Some want management of the physical asset but handle their own bookkeeping. The form captures the specific scope the owner is requesting, because scope defines your management fee structure and your staffing needs. It also captures the owner’s investment objectives — long-term hold, value-add repositioning, preparing for sale within twelve months, or 1031 exchange replacement property — because these objectives drive every decision from capital expenditure approval thresholds to tenant selection criteria.

The form records the owner’s communication preferences (email, phone, text, owner portal), preferred reporting frequency (monthly, quarterly, annually), and financial reporting requirements (cash basis vs. accrual, individual line-item detail vs. summary, year-end tax package format). It captures bank account information for rent deposit and owner distribution, reserve fund requirements, and the owner’s approval threshold for maintenance expenditures — the dollar amount above which you need written authorization before proceeding. Setting this at intake prevents the single most common dispute between owners and management companies: an unexpected $3,000 repair bill the owner learns about after the fact.

Existing Lease Terms and Tenant Information

When a property comes to you with tenants already in place, you are inheriting a set of legal obligations. The form captures each existing tenant: unit number, tenant name, lease start date, lease end date (or month-to-month status), current monthly rent, security deposit amount held, pet deposit, any rent concessions or side agreements, outstanding balance owed, and whether the tenant is current on rent. It records lease-specific terms that affect your management — included utilities, parking assignments, storage units, laundry access, subletting permissions, and any tenant improvement allowances still in effect.

This tenant census is not optional. If the previous owner or management company granted a tenant a verbal agreement to keep a dog in a no-pets building, or promised to paint the unit before the next lease renewal, or accepted a partial rent payment as settlement for a maintenance complaint, you need to know about it before you send your first notice. The form also captures any ongoing tenant disputes, pending eviction proceedings, habitability complaints filed with the local housing authority, and whether any tenant has an attorney involved. Walking into a management engagement without this information is walking into a minefield. For related legal forms covering landlord-tenant disputes, see the real estate law intake forms.

Maintenance, Vendors, and Property Condition

The form includes a detailed maintenance and vendor section. It captures the property’s major systems and their age: HVAC (type, capacity, last service date), plumbing (pipe material, water heater type and age), electrical (panel amperage, last inspection), roof (material, age, warranty status), and any elevator, fire suppression, or security systems. It records the owner’s preferred vendors for plumbing, electrical, HVAC, general handyman, landscaping, snow removal, and pest control — or whether the owner wants you to use your own vendor network. For properties with on-site staff, it captures employee names, roles, compensation, and whether they are W-2 employees or independent contractors, because misclassification liability does not disappear just because a management company took over.

The form also captures move-in/move-out inspection protocols. Does the owner require photo documentation, video walkthroughs, or written condition checklists? What is the security deposit disposition timeline required by the applicable state or local law? What deductions does the owner typically take, and what is their tolerance for normal wear and tear versus chargeable damage? These details matter because security deposit disputes are the single most common source of small claims litigation in residential property management, and your intake process is the first line of defense against them.

HOA, Insurance, and Compliance

For properties in a homeowners association or condominium association, the form captures the HOA name, management company, monthly assessment amount, any special assessments pending, and relevant rules that affect tenant conduct — noise policies, parking restrictions, pet rules, move-in/move-out scheduling, and exterior modification restrictions. It records the property’s insurance coverage: landlord policy carrier, policy number, coverage limits, deductible, whether loss-of-rent coverage is included, and whether the owner requires tenants to carry renter’s insurance. It captures any lead-based paint disclosures required for pre-1978 properties, radon testing status, mold remediation history, and whether the property complies with local rental registration or licensing requirements. Many municipalities now require rental property registration, periodic inspections, and certificates of occupancy — and penalties for non-compliance can include fines, loss of the right to collect rent, and even receivership.

Pricing

The complete property management set is $19.99 (intake form + client questionnaire), $14.99 for intake only, or $9.99 for questionnaire only. All PDFs are fillable in Adobe Reader and password-protected against editing.

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