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CREx / Consulting / Lease Audit
Lease audit service

Every lease charge, on the ledger.

Many shops still keep physical leases in filing cabinets and key the details into the property management system by hand. A pet rent charge or an amenity fee that never made it into the system is missed every month for the life of the lease. We built a process that works with your onsite team to digitize physical leases and compare every term against your PMS, so you never miss a lease charge.

Yardi RealPage Entrata AppFolio MRI Any PMS with a rent roll
/ 01 The problem

The rent roll looks fine. The lease says otherwise.

The lease is signed on paper, filed in a cabinet, and a leasing agent types the terms into the property management system between tours. Most of it lands. Some of it does not. A pet addendum signed on move-in day, a reserved parking space, a technology package, a concession that was supposed to expire in month three.

A missed charge does not announce itself. The rent roll reconciles to the ledger because the rent roll is the thing that is wrong. The resident pays what the system bills, the property manager reports what the system shows, and the asset manager signs off on a number that is quietly short every month until renewal.

Spot checks do not close the gap. Pulling ten leases a quarter tells you about ten leases. The only way to know is to read every lease and compare every term against what the system is actually billing.

Illustrative math
One pet rent charge that never made it into the system
  • $35 / moPet rent on one lease, missed at move-in
  • $420 / yrLost on that lease before renewal
  • $16,800 / yrAcross 40 such leases in a 300-unit community
  • ≈ $305,000Of asset value at a 5.5% cap rate, from a single charge type

Illustrative arithmetic, not a client result. Parking, storage, amenity fees, and expired concessions stack on top.

Scope

Every term that turns into a charge.

We read the full lease and every addendum, then compare each of these against what the property management system is billing today.

/01 · RENT
Base rent and rent steps

Contract rent, scheduled increases, and the effective date of each step versus the amount actually posting.

/02 · PETS
Pet rent and pet fees

Pet addenda signed at move-in or mid-lease, monthly pet rent, one-time fees, and deposits that never became a recurring charge.

/03 · PARKING
Parking, garage and storage

Reserved spaces, garages, and storage units assigned in the lease but billed at the wrong rate or not at all.

/04 · FEES
Amenity, technology and trash fees

Package lockers, internet bundles, valet trash, and amenity fees that are in the lease and missing from the charge schedule.

/05 · UTILITIES
Utilities and RUBS

Utility billing method, flat fees, and ratio utility billing terms compared with how the unit is actually being billed back.

/06 · CONCESSIONS
Concessions and their expiry

Free rent, discounts, and gift cards with a written end date, still posting months after the lease says they should have stopped.

/07 · DATES
Lease dates and term

Start, end, and move-in dates, month-to-month premiums, and renewal terms that never replaced the original lease in the system.

/08 · DEPOSITS
Deposits, guarantors and addenda

Security deposits and alternatives, guarantor agreements, and every addendum that changes what the resident owes.

/09 · EXECUTION
Signatures and executed copies

Unsigned pages, missing counter-signatures, and files where the executed copy cannot be found at all.

Commercial portfolios get the same treatment with a different checklist: base rent escalations, CAM and tax recoveries, percentage rent, abatement periods, options, and security deposit terms.

/ 02 How it works

From the filing cabinet to a corrected ledger.

Four steps, run with your onsite team rather than around them. Each one ends with a deliverable you keep whether or not you continue.

/ 01 ONSITE
Digitize

We coordinate a scan day at the property with your onsite team. Every lease, every addendum, every page, indexed by property, unit, and resident as it is captured. Secure pickup is available where a site prefers it.

Output
Searchable digital lease library
/ 02 EVERY LEASE
Extract

AI reads each lease and pulls charges, dates, terms, and addenda into a structured abstract. Our CPA-led team reviews the extraction against the source page. No sampling, and no term accepted without a page reference.

Output
Reviewed lease abstract per unit
/ 03 AGAINST YOUR PMS
Compare

Each abstract is matched to the rent roll and recurring charge schedule in Yardi, RealPage, Entrata, AppFolio, MRI, or whatever your property manager runs. Every variance is logged with the dollar impact and the lease page it came from.

Output
Exception report ranked by dollars
/ 04 ONGOING
Fix and keep fixed

We walk the exceptions with the site team, corrections are entered in the PMS, and back-charges are pursued where the lease allows. Then the audit runs as a standing check on every new lease and renewal.

Output
Corrected charges and a recurring audit
Why a process, not just a tool

Audit software starts where the paper ends.

Lease audit software assumes the lease is already a clean file synced from your systems. Most of the leak is in leases that never got there, and in a site team that has no time to work another task queue.

/01 · PAPER FIRST
We start at the filing cabinet

Physical leases, scanned and indexed with your onsite team. If the lease never made it into a system, no integration was ever going to find it.

/02 · PEOPLE
We do the work, the site confirms

Scanning coordination, extraction, review, and comparison are ours. Your team gets a short list of exceptions with the page attached, not another dashboard of flags to clear.

/03 · REVIEWED
CPA-reviewed, every lease

AI does the reading. Accountants who close books for a living decide what is an exception, what the dollar impact is, and what the lease actually permits you to recover.

/04 · ALL ASSET CLASSES
Multifamily and commercial

Pet rent and amenity fees on one side. Escalations, recoveries, percentage rent, and abatements on the other. One process, two checklists.

What you keep

A lease library you can search, and a ledger you can trust.

The exception report pays for the engagement. The digitized leases and abstracted terms are what make the next audit, the next refinance, and the next disposition faster.

For CREx OS customers, the abstracts load straight into the rent roll and lease schedule, so lease-to-ledger comparison becomes a continuous background check instead of a project. See CREx OS and PM Integration.

Deliverables
  • LibraryEvery lease and addendum as a searchable PDF, indexed by property, unit, and resident
  • AbstractsStructured lease terms per unit, reviewed against the source page
  • ExceptionsVariance report ranked by monthly and annual dollar impact, with lease page references
  • CorrectionsCharges corrected in the PMS with the onsite team, back-charges where the lease allows
  • CadenceA standing audit on every new lease and renewal so the gap does not reopen
  • OptionalAbstracts and library loaded into CREx OS for continuous lease-to-ledger checks
FAQ

Questions we hear before every audit.

No. Most engagements run as a scan day at the property with your onsite team, using our scanning kit and checklist. Where a site prefers, we arrange secure pickup and return. Files are handled under our SOC 2 controls and are indexed by property, unit, and resident the day they are scanned.

Yardi, RealPage, Entrata, AppFolio, MRI, and most others. We pull the rent roll and recurring charge schedule from your system, or from your property manager's, and match every lease against it. You do not need to change your PMS.

Both. Multifamily audits focus on pet rent, parking, storage, amenity and technology fees, utility billing, concessions, and lease dates. Commercial audits cover base rent steps, CAM and tax recoveries, percentage rent, options, and abatement periods.

Pull the files, be in the building on scan day, and confirm or correct the exceptions we bring them. We handle the scanning coordination, the extraction, the review, and the comparison. The exception report arrives ranked by dollars with the lease page attached, so the site team is confirming, not re-reading leases.

Per lease, scoped after a short call where we confirm the lease count, where the files live, and which property management system you run. You get a fixed scope and a fixed fee before any work starts. Ongoing audits of new leases and renewals are priced separately as a standing service.

No. Lease Audit is a standalone engagement. If you are a CREx OS customer, the digitized lease library and abstracted terms load into your rent roll and lease schedule so the audit becomes a continuous check rather than a one-time project.

Find out what your leases actually say.

Start with a scoping call. Tell us how many leases you have, where they live, and which property management system you run. We come back with a fixed scope and a fixed fee.

Book a scoping call → Explore CREx OS

Stop sampling.
Start reading every lease.

See how a lease audit fits your portfolio in a 30-minute walkthrough led by an asset manager, not a sales rep.

What you'll get
  • 30 minWalkthrough of the audit on a sample of your leases
  • FreeLease count and PMS review to size the engagement
  • No deckA real exception report, not slides about one
  • FixedScope and fee in writing before any scanning starts