5 Easy Steps to the Perfect Online Lease Agreement Form

Are you managing and leasing property? Use an online lease agreement form with digital signatures to simplify the process.

Last week I wrote about utilizing the power of Formidable to display real estate listings on your WordPress website. Now all of your listing data is combined in one easy to use system.

But what comes next? If you're showing properties for lease, wouldn't it be handy to accept electronic signatures in an online lease agreement form?

Here is a quick tutorial to create a simple, effective lease agreement form in just a few steps.

Step 1 - Plan ahead and research local laws

Just because your agreement is online doesn't mean it's any less legally binding. But in some areas you may be required to display additional statutory information or disclaimers for an online document. Double check, and add any extras to your standard wording.

Remember that you can use HTML elements to display text within your form, and inline styling to highlight the important bits in a bold font or vivid color. Would you like to verify acceptance of your terms and conditions? Add an "I agree" checkbox, and conditionally hide sections of the form until the box is checked.

Step 2 - Build your lease agreement form

No doubt you've already got a paper lease agreement form. Copying this to a digital form shouldn't be a huge deal, but it could be a big time saver!

You can even utilize the information submitted when you uploaded the property details to auto-populate many of the fields on your lease agreement form. Not only does this make the process quicker, it also means it's impossible to enter incorrect details, misspell or mix up property specifications.

Step 3 - The signature

A signature is an essential part of any lease agreement. The Formidable Digital Signature plugin allows your users to sign the agreement directly within the form. They have the option to either draw their signature with a trackpad/mouse or just type it.

Offer your clients the ability to sign forms on the spot, eliminating the need to scan and fax forms, or a trip back to the office to sign paper forms. Simply add a signature field to your form and then sign forms and contracts online.

After the signature is submitted, it is saved as an image and stored in your Formidable uploads folder.

Read more: How to collect electronic signatures in online forms

Step 4 - Document delivery

When the lease form is filled out, signed & submitted, there is still more to do. The client needs a copy of the lease agreement. But this can be automated too!

The 3rd party Formidable Pro2PDF add-on allows you to configure a customized PDF copy of the lease agreement to be delivered to the client when the form is submitted. Or send a copy to your office for printing and hard-copy backup if you wish.

Step 5 - Collect a deposit

In the world of property leasing, a security deposit is a high priority when arranging a lease. Again you'll be happy to know that Formidable can handle this automatically with instant online payment processing.

If you wish your form to collect a deposit, don't forget to modify your form actions to trigger on Payment Success so the lease documents won't be emailed the moment the submit button is clicked.

If you auto-populated the monthly cost of the property back in step 2, you can now add a field to calculate the deposit. In my part of the world it's usually a month deposit plus a month rent in advance. A simple x2 calculation is all that would be required. Want the calculation to include local taxes, service fees, and even utility costs? The final price can be calculated based on your exact requirements for this lease agreement.

Either the Paypal Standard or the Stripe Payments add-on, will take the calculated total and submit it for payment on the spot. Proof of payment is usually emailed to you within moments, and Formidable will automatically trigger the form actions you've setup as soon as payment completes.

Conclusion

It isn't always easy to keep track of paperwork and property details. Looking disorganized in front of potential clients is never a good thing. Not only can Formidable help you be more efficient and organized, it can also make you look good in the process.

An online lease agreement system helps show that you're a real professional, and that you put in the extra effort to make sure everything runs smoothly.

So whats stopping you? Create your online lease agreement system today!