Guides
These are the long-form pieces behind the toolkit — the reasoning, the edge cases, and the arithmetic. 12 guides so far, all free to read, none gated behind an email address.
Rent and money
The rent tracker spreadsheet that actually works
Why the month-grid everyone builds falls apart on partial payments and mid-year rent increases — and what to build instead.
Rent ledger vs. rent roll
Two different documents with two different jobs. The columns each one needs, and how to record partial payments and mid-lease increases correctly.
Taxes
Schedule E, line by line (2026)
Every expense line on Form 1040 Schedule E Part I, translated into the words your receipts actually use.
The 7 write-offs small landlords miss
Including the mileage math nobody does, and the repairs-versus-improvements line that costs the most to get wrong.
Repairs vs. improvements — and the three safe harbors
The betterment-adaptation-restoration test in plain English, plus the de minimis, small-taxpayer and routine-maintenance elections.
Do I have to send my handyman a 1099?
The 2026 threshold, the trade-or-business question, the credit-card exception that removes most payments, and the January deadline.
The year-end close and January reset
What to finish in December and what to start in January, so April is a printout instead of an excavation.
Records and operations
What records to keep, and for exactly how long
The IRS 3/6/7-year clocks, the property-basis rule that outlives them all, and the federal rule about destroying screening reports.
What to put in a rental maintenance log
The columns that earn their place, the two dates that decide habitability arguments, and tagging repairs before tax season.
Every date a landlord needs to track
Renewal windows, notice deadlines, the deposit-return clock, insurance and tax dates — and how far ahead each needs to be visible.
Tenants
How to write tenant screening criteria before you list
Objective criteria, applied identically, plus the adverse action notice most small landlords skip.
How to document a security deposit deduction
The condition record, the dated photos, the itemized statement and the deadline that punishes lateness hardest.
The one-page version
Every Schedule E line, the repairs-vs-improvements trap and the most-missed deductions, condensed onto a single printable page.
More coming
New guides land every few weeks. If there's something you keep having to look up, tell us at support@landlordledgerhq.com and it may well become the next one.