Taking on a new property feels like a win, and it is. It is also the point of maximum risk in the relationship, because you are assuming responsibility for a building you do not know, tenants you have never met, and a set of obligations that may not be entirely documented.
The management relationships that sour twelve months in almost always trace back to the first two weeks, when expectations were not set, the building’s actual condition was not established, and the previous arrangements were not verified.
Days One to Three: Documents and Authority
Before anything operational, get the paperwork right.
- The management agreement itself. Signed, with scope, fees, spending authority, term and termination terms all explicit. Do not begin work on a handshake with the intention of papering it later, because the situation where that matters is the situation where you have no agreement.
- Every lease, in full. Not a summary. The actual signed documents, including any amendments, side letters or informal arrangements. Read them. There will be at least one term that surprises you — an included utility, a parking arrangement, a rent concession, a pet permission.
- Tenant records. Names, contact details, tenancy start dates, current rent, payment history, deposit amounts and where deposits are held, and any history of disputes or arrears.
- Financial position. Current arrears by tenant, prepaid rent, outstanding vendor invoices, and any credits owed to tenants.
- Owner details and preferences. Banking for distributions, approval thresholds, reporting expectations, and how they want to be reached.
- Insurance. Policy, coverage, deductibles, and confirmation that you are named where you should be. Check the vacancy provisions while you are in there.
- Compliance documents. Any required inspections, certificates, permits or licences, and their expiry dates.
Where a previous manager is involved, expect the handover to be incomplete. Not usually through bad faith — records are simply not maintained to the standard you need. Assume you will have to reconstruct some of this directly from tenants and the owner.
Days Three to Seven: See the Building
Walk every unit and every common area, with photographs, before you own the problems.
The purpose is threefold. You need to know what you have taken on. You need a documented baseline so that deficiencies discovered in month four are known to have pre-dated you. And you need to find the urgent items, which there will be, because deferred maintenance is one of the most common reasons an owner changes managers.
Record mechanical system types and ages, the condition of roof and envelope, the state of each unit, any life-safety deficiencies, and anything that appears to be an active or developing problem. Photograph all of it, including the parts in good condition.
Life-safety items — smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, egress obstruction, handrails, exterior lighting — get addressed immediately, not scheduled. These are the ones where a delay is indefensible.
Days Three to Seven: Meet the Tenants
In parallel, introduce yourself to every tenant, in person where possible. This is not a courtesy, it is the most efficient information gathering available to you.
Tell them who you are, how to reach you, what the maintenance process is now, and how rent should be paid going forward. Give them a single page with all of that on it.
Then ask two questions and listen carefully. Is there anything outstanding that was reported and not resolved. Is there anything about the unit or the building you should know about.
The answers are worth more than the previous manager’s files. You will learn about the leak that has been reported three times, the informal arrangement about the parking space, the neighbour dispute, and the tenant who has been paying late for a year by agreement with someone who no longer works there. All of these are much better discovered in week one than in month six.
Days Seven to Ten: Keys, Access and Money
Keys. Obtain every key and access credential, count them against units and doors, and test them. Then seriously consider rekeying common areas and any unit where key control is uncertain. You have no idea how many copies exist, and neither does the owner.
Utilities and accounts. Transfer or update every account in the owner’s or manager’s name, confirm the billing address, and establish which accounts are the tenants’ responsibility.
Banking. Set up the trust or operating account arrangements correctly, per your province’s requirements for holding client funds and deposits. Confirm deposit handling specifically, because the rules on where deposits sit are not uniform and a previous manager may have handled it differently.
Rent collection. Communicate the new payment method clearly and early, with the first affected month stated explicitly. This is the most common source of week-five confusion, and it is entirely preventable with a clear notice.
Days Ten to Fourteen: Set Up the Operating Rhythm
Enter everything into your system: property, units, leases, tenants, owner, vendors, key dates. Establish the maintenance intake channel and tell tenants about it. Identify which vendors serve this property and whether you are keeping the incumbent arrangements or moving to your own bench.
Then produce the first owner report, even though there is nothing much to report financially. Use it to set the relationship: what you found, what you have already done, what you recommend and what it will cost, and what the reporting cadence will be going forward.
This document does an enormous amount of work. It demonstrates competence, it establishes the condition of the building at handover in writing, and it converts every deficiency you inherited into an owner decision rather than an eventual accusation.
The Conversation Nobody Wants to Have
If the walkthrough reveals significant deferred maintenance — and it frequently does — the conversation belongs in week two, not month eight.
Present it factually with photographs and estimated costs, separated into what must be done now for safety or to prevent deterioration, what should be done this year, and what can be budgeted over a longer horizon. An owner receiving that in week two understands it as an assessment of what they already owned. The same information delivered in month eight sounds like an explanation of why something went wrong on your watch.
The Principle
The first fourteen days are the only period in which you can establish the baseline without it appearing defensive. Document everything, meet everyone, verify rather than assume, and put it in writing to the owner before you begin routine management.
Every relationship that goes badly wrong later was one where this fortnight was skipped in the interest of getting on with the work.