We’ve built a property management tool for small landlords

Hi William,
Shawn here — I built Doorkeep (doorkeep.co.uk), which sits in a similar space. Good to see more people building for the small landlord rather than just reskinning accountancy software.
To answer your three questions honestly:
1. Gas certs are in a folder on my Google Drive, and no, I probably couldn’t find the right one in under two minutes.
That’s exactly why I built compliance tracking with expiry alerts into Doorkeep — it’s the thing landlords don’t think about until they get the phone call.
2. The tools that exist are either too expensive for someone with 1-3 properties, or they focus on one piece of the puzzle.
MTD software that doesn’t help with compliance. Compliance tools that don’t help with MTD. I think there’s room for several of us solving this properly at a price that makes sense for small portfolios.
3. I didn’t know about the 31 May deadline for the Information Sheet — genuinely useful, thank you.
That’s the kind of thing that catches landlords out because nobody tells you until it’s too late.
Interesting approach with the hash-chained accountability record. Out of curiosity, is that aimed at dispute resolution, or more about giving landlords confidence that their records would stand up if challenged?
Looking forward to seeing how things develop post-launch. The more tools that exist for small landlords, the better the space gets for everyone.
Cheers,
Shawn

Hello William, This sounds interesting. Does it include some form of digital signing? Susan Sinclair

Will it include digital signing?

Reply to the comment left by Shawnavon Radcliffe at 28/04/2026 – 15:03
Shawn, thanks for taking the time, and for being generous about it. Genuinely good to hear from someone building in this space.
On (1): that is exactly the moment we built around. Most landlords I’ve spoken to are in the same position. The certificates exist, they were valid at the time, but two years later nobody can find the right one in the right version. The compliance phone call is the worst time to discover that.
On (2): I agree. The market is wider than it looks from the outside. Small landlords are the largest segment by count and the least well served by the existing tools, which were mostly built for letting agents or portfolio professionals. There is room for several of us to do this properly. Better products lift the whole space.
On (3): glad it was useful. It is a one-off, tied to the RRA transition. Every landlord with a tenancy in place before 1 May 2026 has to serve the prescribed Information Sheet by 31 May, or face a civil penalty of up to £7,000 and lose the ability to rely on certain Section 8 possession grounds until they cure it. The government only published the prescribed PDF on 20 March, with very little public awareness behind it. Plenty of landlords will only find out about it after they have missed it.
To your question on the Accountability Record: closer to your second framing. It is not designed to settle disputes, that is the tribunal’s job. It is designed so that if a landlord ever has to demonstrate what they did and when, the record stands up to scrutiny in a way a folder of PDFs cannot. Small landlords are the segment most likely to face that kind of challenge and the least likely to have records that survive it. That is the gap we are building for.
Same goes from this side, I’ll be watching where Doorkeep goes. Drop me a note any time.
William

Reply to the comment left by susan sinclair at 06/05/2026 – 09:43
Susan, thank you for reaching out directly: I have responded to you by email.

Thanks William