A property management agreement is between a property owner and a managing agent hired to run the property — not between a landlord and a tenant. It covers the management fee, how much authority the agent has to sign leases and approve repairs without asking first, and how the agent must handle rent and deposits held on the owner's behalf. Download the ready-to-fill template below, or read the field-by-field checklist first.
A complete, ready-to-fill PDF — 13 clauses, blanks for every detail, and a signature block for both parties. Free, no email, no account. Read it and adapt it before you use it; the cover page explains what it can and cannot do for you.
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This document is a general-purpose template provided for information only. It is not legal advice, it does not create a lawyer–client relationship, and nobody has reviewed it against your situation.
Laws differ by country, state and province, and they change. A clause that is standard in one place can be unenforceable — or illegal — in another. Terms that are ordinary between two businesses can be void in a consumer or employment context.
Read every clause before you use it, fill in every blank, and delete anything that does not apply. For anything high-value, unusual, or that you could not afford to lose a dispute over, have a qualified lawyer in your jurisdiction review it before it is signed.
This kind of document is regulated differently almost everywhere. Many places require specific notices, disclosures or statutory wording, and some make clauses like these unenforceable outright. Treat this template as a starting point to take to a local lawyer, not as a document to sign as-is.
These are the fields and clauses this agreement needs. Leaving one out doesn't necessarily void the agreement, but each gap is a spot where the owner and the agent can end up disagreeing about how much authority was actually granted — or where an owner's money sits somewhere it shouldn't.
Owner & managing agent names
Full legal or registered business names for both — the managing agent is very often a company, not a person.
Property being managed
The address and how many units, plus what the owner hands over to get started: keys, access codes, existing leases, tenant contacts.
Term & renewal
An initial term, plus how it renews and the notice either side must give to stop it renewing.
Leasing authority
What the agent can do without asking first — advertise, screen, set rent within a range, and sign or renew leases with tenants in the owner's name.
Repair approval limit
A dollar ceiling the agent can spend on a repair without the owner's sign-off, and a separate emergency rule for anything above it.
Management fee & leasing fees
The recurring management fee — usually a percentage of rent actually collected — plus separate fees for placing or renewing a tenant.
Trust account for rent & deposits
How the agent holds the owner's and tenants' money separately from its own operating funds — the part regulated most heavily and most differently from state to state.
Owner statements & reporting
How often the owner gets an accounting of what was collected, what was deducted, and what was paid out — and the annual statement for tax purposes.
Insurance & indemnification
What cover each party carries, and who is responsible for a claim arising from the condition of the property versus from the agent's own conduct.
Termination
How either side ends the agreement, and what the agent must hand back — leases, records, and any money still held in trust.
Signatures & date
Both the owner and the agent sign and date it. It's a draft, and the agent has no authority under it, until both have signed.
Every clause in this agreement is affected by local law to some degree, but the trust-account clause is in a different category. Rent and security deposits an agent collects on an owner's behalf are not the agent's money — most US states and many countries specifically regulate how a property manager or real-estate broker must hold client funds: a separate account from the agent's own operating funds, a ban on commingling, a required reconciliation schedule, and often a licensing or bonding requirement on top.
Those requirements differ sharply between jurisdictions, and getting them wrong is not just a contract dispute — trust-accounting violations are one of the most common grounds for a property manager to lose a license, and in some places carry criminal exposure. That is why the template above leaves the bank or account type, the reconciliation frequency, and the deadline to hand funds over at termination as blanks labeled "check your local law," rather than filling in a number that might be right in one state and unlawful in the next.
Before relying on this clause, confirm the trust-account and licensing rules that apply where the property is located — ideally with a local attorney or your state's real estate licensing authority, not by copying a figure from a template written for a different jurisdiction.
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Not legal advice — property management and trust-account rules vary materially by state and jurisdiction; have a local attorney review your agreement before signing.