A small letting agency
Managing agents with a handful of owners
Twenty or thirty units across several owners, run by two or three people who all need to see the same record.
Notes for Zambian landlords
No. 15 · Managing property for other people
Updated September 2026
No. 15 · Managers and agents
Managing property for other people
Managing somebody else’s property is not the same job as owning it. You hold other people’s money, sign things on their behalf and answer for decisions you did not make alone. The hard part was never the work; it was proving, months later, what you did, when, on whose instruction, and what was collected against which property. A counter book with four owners in it cannot answer that. This can.
In short
- One agent login, connected to several landlords
- You see only the properties you are assigned
- Owner approval on the changes that carry money
- A dated record of every action, in your name
02 · Side by side
Four owners, two ways
In the office book
- All owners on one page, in one column of figures
- Statements rebuilt by hand at month end
- Instructions given on the phone, then disputed
- No way to show what you did and when
In Tezeka
- Each owner’s properties kept separate
- Arrears and collections read per owner
- Consequential changes approved in writing
- Every action timestamped and attributed
Assigned properties, and nothing else
An agent account is granted access to named properties. That is the unit of trust: an owner with six units can hand you two without handing you the other four, and without exposing their billing, their plan or the owner-level reporting Tezeka keeps for them.
The limit lives in the database rather than in the interface. That is what makes it something you can tell an owner about honestly, rather than a menu that happens not to be shown.
04 · How it works
A month across three owners
The same desk, the same day, three sets of books that never touch.
- 1 Oct
Rent falls due across eleven units belonging to three different owners.
- 3 Oct
Proof arrives and is confirmed against the right owner and the right month.
- 8 Oct
A shop on Cairo Road is in arrears. Escalation runs on that owner’s terms.
- 14 Oct
A vacancy needs a new tenant. You draft the lease; the owner approves it.
- 22 Oct
A geyser is replaced with the quote and the cost on the property.
- 1 Nov
Each owner gets their own statement without anybody rebuilding it by hand.
One login, several landlords
An agent account connects to the landlord organisations that have invited it, so you work across several owners from one login rather than keeping a separate password for each one.
What you do not get is a merged view of other people’s money. Each owner’s properties, arrears, deposits and statements stay their own — which is the point, and also what makes the arrangement defensible if it is ever questioned.
The owner approves what the owner should approve
Letting a property, changing a rent, ending a tenancy: these arrive with the owner as an approval rather than as news. For an agent that is protection, not friction — the instruction exists in writing, with a time on it, before the change is made.
Day-to-day work does not wait. Logging a repair, recording payment proof, updating a tenant’s details and chasing arrears all carry on without an approval queue in the way.
The month-end conversation you can win
Every action an agent takes is recorded with who took it and when. When an owner asks why a rent moved, who agreed to a repair, or where a deposit went, the answer is a record rather than a recollection.
This is the part agents consistently underestimate until the first serious dispute. A relationship with an owner rarely ends because of a mistake. It ends because nobody could show what happened.
08 · Who this is for
Three agents we had in mind
A relative doing it as a favour
The informal manager
You look after a cousin’s flats while they are abroad. You want the same protection a paid agent would want.
An estate agent adding management
Sales agents taking on lettings
You already find tenants. Collecting, chasing and reporting every month is the part that needs a system.
09 · What changes
What you stop doing by hand
- i
Rebuilding each owner’s statement at month end
- ii
Keeping four owners apart in one book
- iii
Taking instructions you cannot later evidence
- iv
Explaining a figure you can no longer trace
No. 0001
- Date
- Today
- Received from
- You
- For
- 1 unit
- Amount
- K99 a month
Counterfoil. Keep for your records
Start here
Start with the property you have
Solo is K99 a month for 1 unit. Your tenants keep paying you directly by MoMo, Airtel Money or bank transfer. Tezeka never touches your rent.
Do I pay for Tezeka, or does the landlord?
The landlord holds the account and the plan, and invites your agent account to named properties. Agent seats come out of the landlord’s plan rather than being billed to you.
Can I work for several landlords from one login?
Yes. Your agent account connects to each landlord organisation that has invited it. Their records stay separate from one another; you are not given a merged view of other people’s money.
What can I do without asking the owner?
The day-to-day: logging repairs, recording and confirming payment proof, updating tenant details, chasing arrears and coordinating vendors. Letting a property, changing a rent and ending a tenancy go to the owner as approvals.
Can the owner see what I have done?
Yes, and that is the intention. Every action is recorded with your name and a timestamp, which protects you at least as much as it reassures them.
Can I see the owner’s other properties or billing?
No. You see the properties you are assigned. Their other properties, their billing, their plan and their owner-level intelligence are not visible to an agent account.