We built Slatebase because managing a rental portfolio properly shouldn't mean juggling six different tools — and because most of the "property management software" on the market was built for letting agents, not for the landlord actually doing the work.
If you own even a couple of rental properties in the UK, you'll know the pattern. Compliance certificates live in an email inbox somewhere, or a shoebox. Rent tracking happens in a spreadsheet that gets a bit less accurate every quarter. Tenant contact details live in your phone. Maintenance requests come in over text message and get forgotten about. And every January, self-assessment turns into an archaeology project.
None of that is because landlords aren't organised. It's because the tools available either did too little — a spreadsheet template — or were built for a completely different audience: large agencies managing hundreds of units for other people's portfolios, with pricing and complexity to match.
What Slatebase actually does
Slatebase is built around the actual shape of a landlord's week, not an agency's org chart. That means:
- Compliance that chases you, not the other way round. Gas Safety, EICR, and EPC certificates are tracked automatically against each property's actual features — no gas certificate nagging for an all-electric flat — with reminders before anything expires.
- Legal documents that reflect current law. Tenancy agreements, Section 8 notices, and reference letters are generated from your actual tenancy data and kept up to date with changes like the Renters' Rights Act, then sent for e-signature without printing anything.
- A finance view built for UK tax, not generic accounting. Income and expenses roll up by property with SA105-ready summaries, Making Tax Digital quarters, and a full export whenever you need one.
- A proper channel for tenants and contractors. Messaging, maintenance requests, and reference requests all happen in one place with a full record, instead of scattered across email, text, and WhatsApp.
- Maintenance that doesn't rely on your memory. Jobs can auto-assign to your preferred contractor under a threshold you set, or go out for quotes to several at once, with photos tracked before, during, and after.
Everything is built for the reality of UK lettings specifically — not adapted from a US product, and not scaled down from enterprise agency software.
Who it's for
Slatebase works whether you have one property or twenty. The Free plan covers up to two properties with no time limit and no credit card required, because we'd rather you actually use the product before deciding to pay for it. As your portfolio grows, so does what you need — bank feed reconciliation, e-signature, and tenant self-service scale in from there.
What's next
This is a genuine launch, not a finished product we'll leave alone. We're actively building based on what real landlords tell us is missing — SMS and WhatsApp alerts for tenants and contractors are coming next, along with deeper financial reporting including yield tracking per property.
If something's missing that would make your week easier, tell us. That's exactly how this list of features got built in the first place.