How to Keep Your Rental Property Paperwork Organized
Renting a home or an apartment usually requires a legal agreement called a lease. The terms and conditions of the lease are important to know so that both landlords and renters are on the same page. Keeping your rental property paperwork organized is essential so that you will be able to access the information quickly and easily in the event of a dispute, lawsuit or insurance claim.
Materials Needed
- A file box or filing cabinet.
- Hanging file folders or regular tabbed folders in different colors.
- The hardware for hanging file folders if necessary.
- Manila tabbed folders.
- Labels for your file folders.
- A pen or marker.
- Put your hardware together for hanging files if your filing cabinet or box will accommodate it. It is much easier to use a hanging file system as the folders can’t slip to the bottom and be hidden by all of the other folders.
- Place your color file folders in the cabinet or box. These colored files will correspond to different categories of your paperwork. If you try to put all of the paperwork in one file, it will become overloaded. It will also make it harder to find a certain paper or piece of information. Use the colors of the folders to denote a particular category or section. For instance, red can be correspondence and yellow can be purchases, etc. Use a system that makes sense to you.
- Fill out and attach labels to each file folder.
- Place the appropriate paperwork in the manila folders. Use the manila folders within the colored folders to further divide the categories. For instance, the correspondence category could be divided into a “sent” manila folder and “received” manila folder, into manila folders for each year or into manila folders for different topics of the correspondence.
- Label your manila folders according to their contents from #4 above.
- File your manila folders and paperwork in the appropriate colored files.
- Continue to file your paperwork as you receive it so you will always know where everything is.