New AI and consent tools redefine Tenancy Negotiation Standards

The Depositary’s latest platform enhancements cut admin time by up to 95% and help agents achieve faster, fairer tenancy conclusions.

The Depositary has today announced the launch of two major new features- the Landlord Negotiation Consent Tool and an AI-powered Negotiation Assistant – marking a significant leap forward in how letting agents and property managers handle end-of-tenancy processes.

These innovations are designed to tackle two of the industry’s most persistent challenges: time-draining negotiations and slow deposit returns. With these tools now live, The Depositary enables agents to conclude tenancies in as little as 10 minutes- down from the traditional three hours in a manual process. This helps drive average reconciliation times toward The Depositary’s 10-day target (currently around 12 days)- compared to the UK average of 21 days.

“Tenancy conclusions are a necessary evil for most agents- frustrating, manual, and prone to delay. These tools flip that experience on its head,” said Kristjan Byfield, (Pictured) Co-Founder of The Depositary. “We’re giving agents the tech to be faster, more compliant, and dramatically more effective- all while delivering a better outcome and experience for both tenants and landlords.”

Key Features in Focus

🔹 Landlord Negotiation Consent Tool
Prompts landlords at the ‘proposal sign-off’ stage to grant upfront negotiation parameters (e.g., 90%, 75%, or a custom amount). This empowers agents to respond quickly and conclude negotiations without the need for constant back-and-forth.

🔹 AI-Powered Negotiation Assistant
Uses tailored prompts and tenancy law frameworks to generate professional, empathetic, and compliant responses to tenant counteroffers within seconds. Agents maintain full control, with the option to edit or contextualise any AI-generated response.

Read the article in full

Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR

---

---

Siȃn Hemming Metcalfe ‘If you think your inventory protects you, you have not been paying attention’

When tenants out-evidence you: Why Landlords and Agents must raise their standards 

Thought leadership by Sian Hemming Metcalfe Operations Director – Inventory Base | Property Inspect UK

‘TDS‘s most recent survey of over 2,000 tenants shows exactly what landlords and agents are now up against: 56% of tenants take their own photos at check-in. 54% take photos again at check-out. 78% expect landlords to provide clear evidence of any damage or issues before making deductions. And many don’t trust standard inventories at all — seeing them as biased, vague, or simply inadequate compared to their own evidence. What tenants are really saying is this: prove it, or pay. 

The Balance of Power Has Shifted – It used to be enough to tick the boxes on a basic inventory. Add a few photos, or (as in some landlords view) add thousands because more is more, right? Then skip the check-out entirely because “the tenant just wants their deposit back, and they’re unlikely to complain over a few hundred quid of ‘minor’ deductions.” Or, worse, carry out the check-out but never share it — and expect the same weary resignation from the tenant who, you assume, won’t bother to challenge you.

Not anymore. Tenants arrive (and leave) armed with their own timeline of evidence, and are getting better and smarter at telling the story better than you. Right now, only 14% of tenants have formally challenged a deduction, but that number is climbing as awareness spreads.

We’re already seeing disputes where: Tenant photos contradict the landlord’s / agents check-out report — and win. And damp and mould claims are backed by weeks of tenant evidence, it’s not that tenants always get it right — it’s that you keep getting it wrong.

Why Some Inventories Fail – The industry default — basic, spreadsheet style tick-box templates with stock comments and often nondescript photos — no longer holds up. Why? They’re designed to appease landlords who want speed and low cost. Reports use subjective language like “fair wear and tear” without proving anything. Compliance issues — mould, EPCs, maintenance — are rarely documented.

The TDS Voice of the Tenant | Wave 5 data couldn’t be clearer: tenants know landlords carry the burden of proof. If your evidence doesn’t meet that standard, it’s just digital noise wrapped up in a colourful yet benign bow. It’s not protection. It’s failure dressed up as compliance.

Read the article in full

Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR

---

Why CRE operators owners should assess their digital backbone: the networks, systems, contracts, and data flow

Week 7: The Digital Infrastructure Audit That Pays for Itself

Introduction

Welcome to Week 7 of our 52-week series unpacking the new rules of digital infrastructure in commercial real estate. I’m Bill Douglas, CEO of OpticWise and co-author of Peak Property Performance: Game-Changing AI and Digital Strategies for Commercial Real Estate. This week, we’re breaking down the cornerstone of our transformation strategy: the Peak Property Performance (PPP) Digital Infrastructure Review—and why it often pays for itself in the first 30 days.

Why a Digital Infrastructure Review?

In commercial real estate, it’s common to commission property inspections, HVAC assessments, or energy audits. But very few owners ever take stock of their digital backbone: the networks, systems, contracts, and data flows that quietly govern performance.

That’s what a PPP Digital Infrastructure Review does. It looks beneath the surface to expose how your property is really wired, who controls the connectivity, where your data goes, and what’s limiting your operational efficiency, tenant experience, or asset intelligence.

PPP Insight: You Can’t Optimize What You Don’t Control

One of the core truths in *Peak Property Performance* is this: **You can’t optimize what you don’t control.** Most buildings are running on vendor-owned systems, Wi-Fi contracts that lock out data access, legacy BMS platforms that don’t talk to each other, and disjointed hardware stacks patched together with middleware. These are the invisible friction points that kill your tech ROI.

The PPP Review exposes these control gaps and shows owners what needs to be unified, renegotiated, or re-architected.

Real ROI: Hidden Savings and Future Value

One recent audit revealed that a 400-unit multifamily portfolio was paying for internet service at each building on the campus—and ownership had no access to user data, no ability to layer in tenant apps, and no visibility into uptime or service quality. Worse, five different vendors had overlapping service contracts.

We helped them consolidate vendors, renegotiate contracts, reclaim network control, and deploy a tenant-focused SaaS platform. The result: **$72,000 in annual savings and a new NOI-driving revenue streams.**

That’s what it means for the PPP Review to pay for itself—and then some.

The PPP Review Process: Fast, Deep, Actionable

The PPP Review isn’t a drawn-out consulting project. It’s a fast, structured diagnostic designed specifically for CRE owners and operators.

In less than 30 days, you’ll get:
– A full asset digital blueprint
– A system and data control scorecard
– A digital readiness score
– Recommendations ranked by ROI and implementation ease

Read the article in full

Andrew Stanton CEO Proptech-PR

---