“MDS has always been a leader in the high-volume generation of complex, fully compliant lease renewal packages. The addition of an automated way of dynamically handling this critical rider keeps our clients at the forefront of efficiency.”

– Adam Friedberg, CEO
MDS Property Management Software

At MDS Property Management Software, we are committed to helping property managers stay ahead of regulatory changes and streamline their operations. In response to the recent implementation of New York State’s Good Cause Eviction law, we’ve rolled out a new feature that makes compliance effortless for our users.

As of April 2024, landlords across New York are required to attach an official Good Cause Eviction notice with many lease renewals. The notice outlines tenant protections, such as limits on rent increases and eviction rights, ensuring tenants are aware of their legal protections.

To help property managers comply with this new requirement, our system now automatically includes the official Good Cause Eviction notice whenever lease renewals are generated.

What Makes This Essential For Property Managers

• Automatic Compliance: As regulations become more complex, this feature takes the guesswork out of compliance, ensuring you meet state requirements with every lease generated.

• Seamless Integration: Whether you’re managing one property or hundreds, this update fits seamlessly into your existing workflow. There’s no need for manual intervention—just let our software handle it.

• Reduce Legal Risk: Missing compliance deadlines or forgetting to attach a required notice could lead to costly legal consequences. Our new feature helps you avoid such risks by automating the process.

• Stay Focused on Growth: With routine tasks automated, you can focus more on expanding your portfolio, improving tenant relations, and growing your business.

Setting Up The Good Cause Eviction Feature:

1. Configure your Preferences: We are able to completely automate this process by allowing landlords to setup which buildings and units should receive notices along with how they should be dynamically completed when renewals are generated.

2. Run your regular renewal process: Every time a renewal is generated, the Good Cause Eviction notice will be automatically included along with any other riders you have setup, resulting in a complete, fully compliant package without any manual intervention.

What Is The Good Cause Eviction Law?

The Good Cause Eviction law prevents landlords from evicting tenants without a valid reason and limits rent increases to protect tenants. It applies to most unregulated apartments in New York and includes strict guidelines for when eviction is allowed, such as non-payment of rent or lease violations. The law also mandates that tenants be notified of these rights whenever a lease is signed or renewed.

By automating this process, we help property managers maintain compliance while providing transparency and reassurance to tenants.

Learn more about how MDS Property Management Software can help you stay compliant and simplify your lease management processes.

Call 888.325.8307 or email support@multidataservices.com.

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How so? Rather than manually entering in a whole host of data, from the reason a rent may have increased mid-lease to the proper Building ID and address matching DHCRs records, you can streamline your ARRO filing in its entirety in a truly automated manner and skip the arduous process of manual data entry.

Making Automated ARRO Filing A Reality

As the most advanced property management software of its kind, MDS has built a key component of handling Annual Rent Registration in New York right into our core product – giving you the ability to generate a specific file that can be uploaded directly into the ARRO system.

Combining 60+ Data Elements

MDS’ Annual Rent Registration feature not only responds in record time, but also provides access to over 60 different data elements stored within the core system. When combined with transactional billing history, an accurate, comprehensive export can be generated for you quickly and easily.

Once your initial parameters have been configured, you can perform transactions as usual, billing out your rent and updating your lease terms throughout the year.

Put hours back into your day and money back into your budget with an automated approach to rent registration that’s designed around New York property managers like you. Count on MDS Property Management Software to help you and your team tackle the complexities of managing rent-stabilized apartments in New York and staying compliant. Just as we always have for over 40 years.

Are You An Existing MDS Customer Wanting To Upload Your Data Into The Annual Rent Registration Online System?

To perform this task, follow these steps once you’re in:

1) Click on ADMINISTRATION in the top right of the page.

2) Click REGISTRATION DATA UPLOAD.

3) Under Provider, enter the Provider Code and name associated with your registration Provider Code to be displayed.

4) Under Registration Year, input the registration year for which the Upload is intended.

5) Under File, click BROWSE and select the file to be imported.
This file must adhere to the Data Upload Instructions, only be in *.txt or *.sdf file format and be no larger than 10 MB.

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Good news: With MDS, you can.

The Report Packager feature built into every MDS system takes full advantage of the flexibility of each individual MDS report and the rock-solid nature of the underlying accounting system upon which everything depends. Producing a suite of reports from MDS customized for each building and recipient is literally as easy as pressing a few buttons. Think of this feature as a production line for producing your monthly report packages. Once you set it up, it practically runs on autopilot each month.

How Does Report Packager Work?

The MDS Report Packager allows you to define:

• The recipients that should be receiving a report for each of your buildings
• The recipients’ preferred delivery method
• Which specific reports from a library of over 100 options should be received by each individual recipient
• The specific parameters determining how each report in the package should run

Once you have the above setup, your production line is ready to go.  When it’s time to generate your packages, all you need to specify is which buildings and which month you’d like to run. From there, the system takes care of the rest generating (and even emailing, if you’d like!) beautiful, fully collated packages complete with a table of contents including your logo.

No more scrambling to deliver packages with stacks of reports spread across your conference room table at the beginning of each month.  With the click of a button, you’ve produced a high-level product that will have your customers nodding their heads in approval as they review your finished product. And you’ve done it with much less time and effort than ever before.

Report Packager. Another brilliant and practical feature made just for New York property managers like you – and one that comes standard with your MDS system. To get a demo of how much more efficiently it can transform every property management report you handle, call MDS at 888.325.8307 or email sales@multidataservices.com.

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Imagine this scenario: A tenant calls your office and says,
“You cashed my check, but it’s not reflected on my record. Even though I sent you $500, you still say I owe you $500. I have a copy of the canceled check right here. You did, in fact, deposit this into your bank account.”

Oh no. Where did that check go? 

You know you deposited the check. There’s no argument with your tenant on that. While any number of things are possible, the most likely scenario is that your team accidentally applied the check to the wrong tenant’s account. It happens in high volume environments.

While you won’t yet know for certain what happened to this check, you do know it makes sense to start with the most likely scenario.  You know you need to find that check if it passed through your system. Now.

Find Tenant’s Deposit Is The Search Tool That Saves The Day

At this moment, you need a search tool that can efficiently comb through the thousands of payments that are constantly flowing into your office.  Enter the Find Tenant’s Deposit feature to do just that.

In Find Tenant’s Deposit, you might start your search query by typing:

“Find every $500 deposit received between Date A and Date B.”

If you have the check number, you can also include that in your query. This means you can quickly identify all the instances of that check posted to the system within that time period and to easily identify how they were applied- right or wrong.

Sure enough, the check was applied to a different tenant in the same building. Or, even worse, it could have been applied to a tenant in a completely different building and the money is now sitting in the wrong bank account. Speed in figuring these things out really counts- especially at the end of the month when you are finalizing your management reports going out to your stakeholders.

With this feature, you’ve now identified the exact payment that was applied improperly within a few prompts. All you have to do is remove it from the wrong tenant’s account and place it into the proper tenant’s account. In virtually no time, you’ve avoided endless searches and the frustration of looking for a needle in a haystack.  Or worse, sending out management statements including this error.

If a deposit goes missing, landlords like you need answers for your tenants who just can’t wait. And once you utilize Find Tenant’s Deposit in the MDS system, you’ll save some serious time while preserving the relationships with your tenants and outside stakeholders. 

To access this feature, simply click Other Tasks> Find Tenant’s Deposit. Or, ask anyone on the Support Team to show you how it works and they’d be happy to get you started.

Talk to MDS about how these essential features make ours the premier system built for New York property management. Call us at 888.325.8307 or email sales@multidataservices.com today.

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1. Review expiring leases on a monthly basis and make decisions about new rates
2. Print multiple copies of your upcoming renewals and supporting riders
3. Mail these packages by Certified Mail to residents that may or may not be renewing
4. Follow up throughout the process with phone calls and emails to ensure receipt and to coax a decision out of the resident
5. Open returning renewals signed by tenants and pass them on for owner’s signature
6. Mail a copy of the completely executed renewal back to the resident for their records
7. Scan the copy of the renewal into MDS and enter whether the resident decided to renew for a 1 or 2 year lease.  Or, maybe they didn’t renew at all.

Maybe, you even have someone in your office using a tool like Docusign to manually prepare and send the PDF lease renewals generated in step two for electronic signature and then monitor this process and manually pick things back up in step 7.

Not the most efficient NYC lease renewal process, right? Fortunately, we’re excited to say this time-intensive, expensive and manual process has changed forever and for the better.

MDS offers an automated, electronic way to take care of high volumes of lease renewals so that you can get on to your other important tasks.

e-Renewal Processing from MDS: The Ideal Way to Process An NYC Lease Renewal

Our e-Renewal Processing system is an add-on enhancement to your current MDS system that removes the bottlenecks that can occur within the renewal process, empowering landlords to accelerate the preparation, signing and processing of lease renewals. Thanks to our deep integration with PandaDoc – industry-leading software for creating and e-Signing documents – you never need to leave MDS. Basically, you’re taking steps 2-7 from your existing process and turning them into something anyone can do right from their desk in a fraction of the time (without paying for certified mail, envelopes and everything else!).

We understand the importance of producing accurate and comprehensive renewals and just how complicated that process can get, particularly when dealing with custom riders that should print conditionally depending on what building or even tenant the program is coming across.  You have faith in this critical component of your existing system which is why we aren’t reinventing the wheel from that perspective.  The e-Renewal system uses all of the same packages and logic that you’ve already gone through the pain of working out.  However, sending, signing and processing the same documents just got a whole lot easier.

New York Law Opens New Opportunities For Electronic Lease Renewal 

“Wait,” you’re thinking. “Haven’t there been legal questions about electronic lease renewals in New York?” Yes. In the past, it wasn’t entirely clear that landlords could shift the NYC lease renewal process for their rent-stabilized tenants over to an electronic version without some legal challenges. Those days are officially done, courtesy of a new New York law, the Electronics Documents Law paired with the DHCR’s release of the Electronic Lease Consent Form (3/22).   

The Electronic Documents Law states that collecting signatures specifically on lease renewals is legal. The release of the Electronic Lease Consent Form (3/22) by the DHCR takes any question off the table with respect to Rent Stabilized tenants (yes! We even help you get that form signed electronically in a very easy way!). As a result, no matter what types of units you handle within your portfolio, whether it be Fair Market or Rent Stabilized, you can proceed with confidence that leases signed through the MDS e-Renewal Processing product follows New York.

Now that you can tremendously improve the efficiency of your entire lease renewal process, why settle for anything less? Talk to MDS about the e-Renewal Processing add-on to save you massive amounts of time. Call us at 888.325.8307 or email sales@multidataservices.com today.

The post NYC Lease Renewal: The Best Feature To Boost Its Efficiency appeared first on MDS Property Management Software.

 The MDS product is always being updated to adapt to the constant, and at times sweeping, changes taking place in New York. The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 is perhaps the most glaring example of a raft of regulations that placed a series of new requirements on our customers practically overnight. With the stroke of a pen, the rules affecting everything from what could be charged in late fees to how annual rent registrations get filed was changed. Many aspects of property management software systems deployed throughout New York were effectively broken overnight, which meant falling back to tedious manual procedures or running the risk of costly fines. Without the right property management software partner, managers were stuck reporting their issues into a black hole and hoping their provider would their change requests seriously enough to eventually provide an effective software update. Within one rent cycle, MDS customers were able to resume everything from automated late charge processing to the generation of compliant rent demand notices (and so much more). When something changes in New York, MDS is one of the first to know and the fastest to respond. All we worry about is New York, and the speed at which we react to changes in local law is reflective of that commitment. 

 Working with an experienced, well-trained staff of experts that know how to deploy property management software to make it work in the real world is just as important as the software itself. Our staff knows the intricacies of our product, the local industry, and how to consult with customers to ensure a smooth rollout. Our team builds long-term relationships with our loyal user base ensuring ongoing, continuous improvement of your overall operation. From initial data conversion to assisting with day-to-day questions, a top-notch support team is critical to a successful deployment. Improving your operation should never stop, and the team at MDS is committed to helping you make continuous improvements to your operation throughout the life of your relationship with MDS. 

 MDS is an expert at building, deploying, and supporting back-office property management accounting software that handles the management of your New York buildings and tenants throughout their lifecycle. Delivering and constantly refining the many aspects that go into delivering this solution keeps us plenty busy, which is why we partner with other companies that are also experts in their specialties. Are you looking to outsource the processing of your accounts payable? We can either refer a vetted expert provider or work with the vendor of your choosing. Our goal is to create an overall ecosystem that works best for our clients. That might mean building a solution that helps our customers be more efficient, or to tightly integrate a third-party product into our core accounting product. While we can frequently refer customers to best-of-breed providers, we will ultimately work to deploy whatever solutions are best for the business of our customers. 

 If you are operating buildings in New York, your choice of a property management software provider will have a tremendous impact on your operation for many years, for better or for worse. While choosing a product that includes the specific New York features you need is critical; just as important is the ability of your software partner to properly assist in initial system deployment and ongoing usage and refinement. Pairing these core building blocks with tight integrations to other expert providers is our specialty at MDS. Choosing MDS puts you and your staff in a position to operate at optimal efficiency in the demanding world of New York property management. 

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After attending CHIP’s annual “Build, Buy, Hold, Sell: Strategies and Expectations for the NYC Real Estate Market” event, the big takeaway relevant to our business is clear. Staying DHCR compliant makes your portfolio more valuable. Savvy buyers often dig deep before closing to uncover compliance issues and will discount their offers accordingly, or even walk away. According to one of the CHIP panelists, “you have to have your ducks in a row” when it comes to compliance when selling.

The Right Systems are Critical

So how do you efficiently stay DHCR compliant to maximize your portfolio’s value in the long term? Processes should be automated so that they are completed efficiently and consistently. Tracking items in Excel and preparing forms by hand can be eliminated with the right software in place. Filing and retrieving important documentation can be completely automated. Disjointed processes are inefficient in the short term while making it difficult to consistently stay DHCR compliant.

MDS Explorer is a New York System

MDS Explorer is built from the ground up to help you efficiently stay DHCR compliant in the New York market. Our product includes features ranging from tools to manage Preferential Rents in Rent Stabilized portfolios to tightly tracking outstanding work orders to avoid violations.  MDS has the benefit of focusing exclusively on New York, allowing us to nimbly change our software to match local law. MDS Explorer doesn’t include New York features, it’s a New York system.

It’s a jungle out there, but staying DHCR compliant doesn’t have to be so hard

Let us Show You!

Give us a call and let us show you how to stop managing your portfolio the old fashioned way. Everything from MCI increases to Annual Apartment Registrations can be automated without reinventing the wheel. Give us a call and let us show you what we’re talking about. Maximize the value of your portfolio by staying DHCR compliant as efficiently as possible with MDS.

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Besides using MDS Explorer to manage your New York City property management portfolio, one of the next best things you can do is to subscribe to this comprehensive resource.

CHIP members get 20% off!

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