Brief Explanation about a Rent Roll

A rent roll is a document that lists the rental properties owned by a concerned party along with the related details. WealthHow provides a brief explanation about rent roll.

Real estate is a thriving business as of today. There are private companies, brokers, private property dealers, and a myriad of other entities who deal with real estate. You must know that there is a difference between people who sell properties and those who lease them out. When either a private property owner or a rental company leases out his property/properties, he needs to maintain information regarding the same. This is what is displayed in a rent roll. The paragraphs below tell you what a rent roll is. A printable rent roll template has also been provided.

• A simple definition of rent roll is, “A form relaying important information.”
• It is a vital document that contains essential information about properties.
• These properties belong to a specific party, perhaps a landlord, a property dealer, or rental companies.
• The owner of the properties has to have the rent roll to understand how many tenants he has, what is the rent, the lease period, etc.
• The document is a vital proof of the landlord’s income from his properties.
• In some cases, it is also referred to as ‘register of rents’, as it depicts all the rental data and functions as a quick reference for tenant information.

You can download the rent roll form here.

• A simple rent roll format contains fields like tenant name, address, rent, lease date, etc.
• Any other detail to be entered is completely at the owner’s discretion.
• A property may be an apartment building that has been leased out, or there may be big, individual houses, or separate flats in separate buildings.
• The format may be changed accordingly, even though the basic information is always present.
• Some of the commonly used fields in a rent roll form are explained below. 

• The tenant name has to be written here.
• The name has to be the same as that on the rental agreement.
• For instance, if a family of four, husband, wife, and two kids, has leased the apartment and the rental agreement has the name of the husband, he will be the main tenant, i.e., you need to enter his name in the form.

• Enter the address of the property where the tenant is currently residing.
• If you have leased out an individual condominium, write the complete address.
• If you have an apartment building, writing the apartment number will suffice.

• There are two columns here – lease start date and lease end date.
• Here, you have to write the date when the property was leased and in the next column, the date when the lease expires.
• Lease review is important while calculating rental income.

• Here, you need to include the current rent that you obtain from your tenant.
• This column is subject to change. If you make any changes in the amount, you need to include that as well.

• This column contains the initial amount that your tenant has paid for the property.
• This column will not change of course; make sure though, that you have entered the right amount.

• This field is usually optional.
• You can label the column as ‘square feet’ and may be even include another column as area maintenance, etc.

• As mentioned earlier, any additional detail is dependent on the property owner.
• Also, the laws and regulations of the state matter―if there is anything else that needs to be present in the form, that column needs to be added.
• If any recent data has been upgraded, this may be included separately.
• The expense arrangement may also be included, depending on the owner.

• The rent roll is a distinctive piece of document that provides a proof for income.
• As it contains all the details of the rental properties, it gives the exact amount of income earned by the person/company through these real estate assets.
• You need to provide the exact details of the rents in order that your taxes be managed effectively. If you show any discrepancy, you may land up in legal trouble.
• The document is also useful when you are considering the acquisition of income property.
• It is used by government agencies, lenders, managers, etc., and is needs to be updated periodically.

• It is an essential document demonstrating current income.
• It is useful in case you put up your property for sale.
• The entire rental history is enlisted in the document. While selling, you can refer to the correct data and provide the same to prospective buyers.
• It may help him decide whether he needs to sell the property or not by considering the factors like current rent and property income.
• This helps him analyze if the property can be a cash spinner. If it is not, he might as well get saved from the trouble of putting it on the market.
• It may also be required by lenders as a loan condition.
• It is also used as a part of the accounting processes for other businesses by considering the payment status.

Sample Form
A couple of rent roll samples are given below. While one of them is a sample template, the other is an example of how the form has to be filled.

Rent roll documents can be prepared using Word and Excel, as well as other specially designed property management software. In a nutshell, a rent roll depicts the total income that one obtains from rented property. It is a very useful, vital document, and every property owner/rental company needs to keep the completed form with them.