Two Kinds of Maintenance: How LeasePilot HQ Handles Repair Requests and Recurring Compliance Separately

"Maintenance" actually covers two very different jobs, and most software blurs them. One is reactive: a tenant's dishwasher breaks and you need to get it fixed. The other is proactive: the chimney needs its annual cleaning whether or not anyone reported a problem. LeasePilot HQ keeps these as two distinct systems under the Maintenance page — a request tracker and a recurring Schedule — because the workflows genuinely differ. This post covers each, and why the split matters.

System one: tenant-submitted repair requests

The request side starts with the tenant. They log in to the Tenant Portal, open the Maintenance tab, and click New request, filling in a title, category, priority, and description. The categories are Plumbing, Electrical, HVAC, Appliance, General, and Other; the priority levels are Low, Normal, High, and Urgent. You get an email notification for each new request, so nothing depends on a tenant also texting you.

Managing a request through to done

On the Maintenance page you see every request, with summary cards counting them by status and urgent ones highlighted. You can filter by status — Open, In Progress, Scheduled, Completed — or by priority. Expand a request and click Edit / Update to move it forward:

• • Assign it to a vendor (by name and phone, or through the smart-suggested vendor assignment if you keep a vendor directory)
• • Set a scheduled date for the work
• • Record estimated and actual cost, which feeds your expense tracking
• • Add internal notes that are visible only to you, never the tenant

The tenant gets an email whenever the status changes, so they're kept in the loop without you drafting an update each time. When the job's done you click Mark complete, which records the completion date automatically — log the actual cost first so the expense record is accurate, then use the status filter to tuck completed requests out of your main view. Completed requests stay in the system as a record.

System two: recurring compliance scheduling

The Schedule tab is a completely different animal — it's landlord-facing and proactive, with no tenant involved. This is where the recurring, calendar-driven work lives: the annual detector checks, the seasonal HVAC service, the insurance renewals, the municipal inspections. And rather than making you build that calendar from a blank page, LeasePilot HQ suggests items based on what your property actually is.

How the suggestions get smart: property details

To unlock tailored suggestions, you add a few details to a property — go to Properties, edit a property, and click "+ Add property details." These characteristics drive the recommendations:

• • Year built — a property built before 1978 gets a suggested lead paint check
• • Whether there's a fireplace — suggests annual chimney cleaning
• • Heat type, and whether the property has a pool or a septic system — each drives its own relevant suggestions
• • Roof and water heater install years — these unlock budgeting estimates

Every one of these fields is optional; nothing breaks if you skip them. On the Schedule tab you pick a property from the dropdown and see the suggestions generated from what you entered. It's worth being clear about what these are: a starting point based on your property's characteristics, not a legal determination — you should always confirm your specific state and local rules. Even a property with no details entered still gets a universal "smoke & CO detector check before turnover" suggestion, so you're never starting from nothing. Click "+ Add" on any suggestion to turn it into an active reminder.

The 130+ item catalog

Suggestions aren't the only source. Click "+ Add reminder" and you can pick from over 130 built-in maintenance and compliance items, spanning fire safety, HVAC, government and municipal requirements, plumbing, electrical, roofing, landscaping, pest control, appliances, tenant turnover, insurance, legal, utilities, and seasonal categories — or enter a fully custom one. Picking a catalog item auto-fills a sensible recurrence, like annual or quarterly, so you're not guessing at intervals. You can assign a reminder to a specific unit rather than the whole property, and leaving "Repeats every" blank makes it a one-time reminder — useful for something like a security deposit return deadline.

Reminders at 30, 14, and 7 days

The whole point of a schedule is being nudged before a deadline, not after. LeasePilot HQ emails you a reminder 30, 14, and 7 days before each item is due. When you've done the work, click "✓ Complete" on the Schedule tab, and the behavior depends on the item type:

• • A recurring item automatically schedules its next occurrence based on its recurrence interval — complete this year's chimney cleaning and next year's is already on the calendar
• • A one-time item (no recurrence) is removed from the active list when completed
• • Overdue items are flagged in red on the Schedule tab so a missed deadline stays visible

Why the split is the point

Keeping requests and the schedule separate isn't a UI quirk — it reflects that reactive and proactive maintenance fail in different ways. Requests fail when they vanish into an inbox with no tracking; the request tracker fixes that with statuses and tenant-visible updates. Recurring compliance fails when there's no prompt to act on a schedule you technically wrote down once; the Schedule tab fixes that with property-aware suggestions and 30/14/7-day emails. Treating them as one list would compromise both.