Rent Roll Audit Checklist

Export the current rent roll from AppFolio, Buildium, Yardi, or your PMS of record. Pull as of the first of the month so the snapshot aligns with the GL close. Include columns for unit, tenant, lease start/end, market rent, actual rent, deposit held, and balance due.

Lock the as-of date with the controller before fieldwork starts. Mid-month exports drift as payments post and move-ins close — agreeing on a single cutoff prevents reconciliation chasing later.

Compare every name on the rent roll against the executed lease in the tenant file. Watch for co-signers listed as tenants, occupants miscoded as leaseholders, and unit transfers where the prior tenant's name was never overwritten.

Confirm the dates on the rent roll match the executed lease and any renewal addenda. Month-to-month conversions after a fixed-term expiration are the most common error — the system often retains the original end date even after rollover.

Tie each unit's actual rent to the executed lease, not the market rent field. Scheduled escalations, CPI adjustments, and renewal increases are the typical sources of variance — flag any unit where the rent roll trails the contract rent.

Confirm the deposit balance held matches the lease and that funds sit in the correct trust account. Some states (CA, MA, NJ) require deposits in a separate interest-bearing account; commingling with operating funds is a statutory violation regardless of bookkeeping intent.

Pull each delinquent tenant's payment ledger and verify the balance ties to the rent roll. NSF reversals, partial payments, and late-fee waivers are common reconciliation gaps. Anything over 30 days delinquent should already be in the collections workflow.

Walk lease term, rent escalation schedule, and renewal options against the rent roll fields. Commercial leases with CAM reconciliations and percentage rent need extra scrutiny — the rent roll often shows base rent only.

Flag every lease expiring within 120 days so leasing has runway to negotiate renewal or list the unit. Holdover tenants without a fresh lease or a documented month-to-month conversion are the highest-risk category — the legal status drives eviction options later.

Verify unit naming matches the lease and the postal address. After a unit re-numbering or building re-plat, rent rolls often retain the legacy unit ID — this breaks downstream maintenance dispatch and tenant statements.

Cross-check bedroom count, bathroom count, and rentable square footage against the unit mix on file. Square footage errors compound into wrong $/sqft analysis at the asset-management layer.

For units in rent-stabilized jurisdictions (NYC, LA RSO, SF, Berkeley, Oakland, St. Paul), confirm the rent on file does not exceed the allowable annual increase. Excess collections often must be refunded with interest and can void lease provisions.

Pull a sample of recent denials and confirm an FCRA adverse action notice was sent with the reporting agency's name and contact. Source-of-income and uniform screening criteria documentation should also live in the file in protected jurisdictions.

Walk parking, storage, garage, and utility-RUBS line items unit-by-unit. Tenants who give up a parking spot mid-lease often keep getting billed; tenants who add storage rarely have it added to the rent roll.

For each concession (one month free, $500 look-and-lease, etc.), confirm the burn-off schedule matches the lease and that concessions stop after the promotion period. Lingering concessions silently erode GPR.

Summarize variances by category (rent, deposit, occupancy, compliance) with proposed corrections and dollar impact. Highlight anything that affects the next owner statement so accounting can post adjustments before close.