Property management software
for South Africa, end to end.
One platform for residential rentals, community schemes (HOA, sectional title, body corporate) and maintenance — built around the way South African managing agents, landlords and trustees actually work. Trust accounting under the Property Practitioners Act, levy roll and reserve fund segregation under STSMA, CSOS-aligned compliance, POPIA controls and WhatsApp maintenance dispatch.
- Rentals + schemes
- PPA s.54 trust
- STSMA reserve fund
- POPIA-aligned
Residential rentals and community schemes share the same properties list, finance hub, trust ledger and team directory.
Deposit-only regulated trust accounts kept separate from rent, with immutable, lockable ledgers and structured records to support audit preparation.
Reserve-fund balances for community schemes kept segregated within the chart of accounts, with records structured to support auditor handover.
Most teams run rentals on one system and schemes on another. Regalis runs both — plus maintenance — in one place.
South African property businesses rarely fit a single mould. A typical managing-agent firm carries a residential rental book, a handful of Homeowners Associations and body corporates, and a stream of maintenance tickets across every door — all governed by a layered regulatory stack: the Property Practitioners Act for trust accounting, the Sectional Titles Schemes Management Act and the CSOS Act for community schemes, the Rental Housing Act for deposits, and POPIA across all of it. The usual answer is several disconnected tools.
Regalis is the deep category platform for that reality. Rentals, community schemes and maintenance run on one record, not three. Trust money, levy money and rent money post into one general ledger. Owners, tenants and trustees share one directory and one privacy centre. This pillar is the map of the whole South African category — from each module it routes you to the dedicated page that goes deeper on that slice.
The three pillars below — rental management, community scheme management, and maintenance and inspections — are where the day-to-day depth lives. Underpinning them, trust accounting and the community-schemes finance engine keep the money compliant. Use this page to orient; follow the links to go deep.
One operating record for the entire South African property operation.
Each tile is a real surface in the product. Follow the linked pillars for the full depth on rentals, schemes and maintenance.
Applications & leases
Tenant applications with screening, lease lifecycle from draft to signature, recurring invoicing, and derived lease status that flags expiring and expired leases automatically.
Rental arrears collection
Structured arrears recovery with multi-channel reminders and DebiCheck-aware debit orders, so rent collection follows a repeatable workflow rather than ad-hoc chasing.
Trust accounting
Per-landlord regulated trust accounts under PPA section 54, deposit interest accrual per the Rental Housing Act, immutable entries and a lockable financial year.
Levy roll
For community schemes, a live per-unit levy computed from participation quota and the active budget. Base levies, special levies and reserve-fund top-ups flow through one monthly run.
Reserve fund segregation
Designed to support STSMA section 3(1)(b): reserve-fund accounts are flagged within the chart of accounts and movements post to a dedicated reserve trust account.
Trustee multi-sig approvals
Configurable N-of-M approvals per scheme — for example two of three trustees must approve a supplier payment above a threshold — with the full decision trail captured.
Maintenance dispatch
Tenants log categorised repairs; eligible vendors at the property bid an ETA over WhatsApp and the earliest credible bid auto-wins. Photo trail, work logs and vendor health scores throughout.
Owner & tenant portals
Landlords see their portfolio and statements; tenants see invoices, payments and maintenance status; trustees see the scheme. One directory across rentals and schemes.
Scheme-mode property
Toggle any property to HOA, body corporate, sectional title or share block, capture CSOS registration and the scheme financial-year anchor, and the right compliance surfaces appear.
Transfers & conveyancing
A transfer workflow from opened to complete with conveyancer assignment, an outstanding-amount gate, and a levy clearance certificate PDF once the balance is settled.
Budgets & general ledger
Annual budgets with actual-vs-budget reporting, a hierarchical chart of accounts, and trial balance plus general ledger straight out of the unified ledger.
Notices & POPIA
Targeted bulk WhatsApp, SMS and email to owners, tenants or trustees, alongside a consent ledger, data-subject-request queue and retention sweeps in the privacy centre.
What the fragmented-tooling status quo costs you
- A separate system for rentals and another for schemes means two logins, two charts of accounts, two trust ledgers and two POPIA centres.
- Maintenance lives in WhatsApp threads and spreadsheets, with no photo trail, no vendor scoring and no link back to the lease or scheme it belongs to.
- Trust money, levy money and rent money sit in different tools, so reconciliation and audit become manual spreadsheet work.
- A person who owns a rental unit and also sits on a body corporate trustee committee has two profiles, two statement sets and two compliance footprints.
- The CEO of a managing-agent firm cannot answer "how is firm-wide arrears trending across rent and levies?" without reconciling reports by hand.
What one South African platform gives you
- One subscription, one implementation, one chart of accounts and one trust posture across rentals and schemes.
- Maintenance dispatched over WhatsApp with a photo trail, work logs, invoices and vendor health scores — linked to the right lease or unit.
- Trust, levy and rent flows post into one general ledger, so reconciliation and audit run from inside the platform.
- A unified profile for anyone who is an owner in one context and a tenant or trustee in another.
- A CEO view that shows firm-wide arrears across rent and levies on one chart, with drill-down into any manager's combined book.
From onboarding a book to a clean, auditable year-end.
Bring your rentals and schemes onto one record
Onboard rental landlords, tenants and leases, and toggle community-scheme properties into scheme mode with their CSOS registration and financial-year anchor. Owners, tenants and trustees land in a single team and contact directory.
- Rental landlords, leases and tenants
- Scheme-mode HOA / body corporate / sectional title
- One unified owner, tenant and trustee directory
Set up the money correctly from day one
Install the chart of accounts with reserve-fund flags for schemes, open per-landlord regulated trust accounts for deposits, and draft scheme budgets for trustee approval. Rent defaults to direct-to-landlord settlement, keeping the regulated trust ledger deposit-only.
- Per-landlord PPA s.54 trust accounts
- Reserve-fund flagged COA for schemes
- Budgets submitted for trustee approval
Run the recurring cycles
Rent invoices and levy runs mint on schedule — levies from participation quota and the active budget, with pro-rata on mid-month transfers. Arrears recovery, deposit interest accrual and reserve-fund top-ups run on the same engine.
- Monthly rent and levy runs
- Structured arrears recovery
- Deposit interest and reserve top-ups
Maintain, approve and close
Maintenance dispatches over WhatsApp with vendor bidding. Supplier payments clear N-of-M trustee approvals before the EFT batch exports. Year-end runs the close — trial balance, general ledger, actual-vs-budget and the reserve-fund report — then the financial year locks.
- WhatsApp maintenance dispatch
- Trustee multi-sig on supplier payments
- Lockable year-end with audit-ready records
PPA, STSMA, CSOS, the Rental Housing Act and POPIA — the platform lines up to all of them.
South African property work sits inside a layered regulatory stack. The Property Practitioners Act (PPA, 2019) governs managing-agent registration and trust accounting; under section 54 a deposit-only regulated trust account keeps client money separate. The Sectional Titles Schemes Management Act (STSMA, 2011) requires a body corporate to maintain both an administrative fund and a reserve fund under section 3(1)(b). The Community Schemes Ombud Service Act (CSOS, 2011) establishes CSOS as the scheme oversight and dispute body. The Rental Housing Act governs tenant deposits and interest, and POPIA governs personal information across the whole operation.
Regalis is built around each of those rather than retrofitted to them. Trust accounts are regulated-trust or interest-bearing by type, reserve-fund balances are kept segregated within the chart of accounts, CSOS registration is captured directly on each scheme, deposit interest accrues automatically, and POPIA mechanisms — consent ledger, data-subject-request queue, retention sweeps — run as one set across rentals and schemes, designed to support POPIA-aligned consent, retention and data-subject workflows. The practical effect for a firm migrating off a fragmented stack is fewer manual reconciliations, cleaner audit preparation and a single privacy surface.
Informational only — not legal advice. Statutory references describe the public requirements as we understand them; confirm your own obligations with your auditor, your registered Information Officer and, where relevant, your conveyancer or the CSOS.
Continue exploring how Regalis handles the rest of the rental operation.
Rental management
Applications, leases, recurring invoicing, arrears recovery and landlord settlement for South African residential rentals.
Read moreCommunity scheme management
HOA, sectional title and body corporate operations — levy roll, trustee multi-sig, reserve fund segregation and CSOS compliance.
Read moreMaintenance & inspections
WhatsApp vendor-auction dispatch, photo trails, work logs, vendor health scores and inspection workflows across every door.
Read moreTrust accounting
Per-landlord regulated trust accounts under PPA section 54, deposit interest accrual and a lockable, audit-ready ledger.
Read moreCommunity schemes platform
The full scheme module: levy roll, conduct-rule offences, transfers, AGMs, trustee approvals and CSOS-aligned reporting.
Read moreSee pricing
How seats and books are priced for managing agents running rentals and community schemes on one platform.
Read moreProperty management software in South Africa — common questions.
What is property management software in the South African context?+
It is the operating system a managing agent, landlord or trustee committee uses to run a property book end to end — applications and leases for rentals, the levy roll for community schemes, trust accounting under the Property Practitioners Act, maintenance dispatch, owner and tenant portals, and POPIA-aligned record keeping. Regalis covers residential rentals and community schemes (HOA, sectional title, body corporate, share block) on a single platform rather than two separate products.
Does Regalis handle both rentals and community schemes?+
Yes. A scheme is modelled as a property with scheme attributes set, so the same properties list, finance hub, trust ledger and team directory serve both books. A managing agent running rental landlords and HOAs at the same time operates one record, not two stacks. See the rental management and community scheme management pillars for the depth on each.
Is the trust accounting compliant with South African rules?+
Each trust account is either a regulated deposit-only trust under the Property Practitioners Act section 54 or a landlord interest-bearing account. Deposits stay separate from rent flows, entries are immutable, deposit interest accrues per the Rental Housing Act, and the financial year can be locked once an audit signs off. The trust accounting page covers the detail of how the workflows are structured to support South African property-practitioner requirements.
How does it support community-scheme compliance (CSOS, STSMA)?+
STSMA section 3(1)(b) requires a body corporate to maintain both an administrative fund and a reserve fund; Regalis is structured to keep reserve-fund balances segregated within the chart of accounts. CSOS registration is captured directly on scheme-mode properties, and levy obligations, dispute references and compliance items surface in the planner. This is informational only and not legal advice.
What does the maintenance workflow look like?+
Tenants log a categorised repair, eligible vendors linked to that property bid an ETA over WhatsApp, and the earliest credible bid auto-wins. Every request carries a photo trail, work log, invoice and a vendor health score. Health-and-safety emergencies route to your armed-response partner instead of the auction.
Is it POPIA compliant?+
POPIA controls are built in — a consent ledger, data-subject-request queue, retention sweeps and a privacy centre. Because rentals and schemes share one platform, there is one consent ledger and one DSR queue to maintain rather than two.
Is Regalis suited to managing agents running many books?+
Yes. One firm with a CEO, several property managers, rental landlords and community schemes runs everything on one instance. The CEO drills into any manager and sees that person's combined book — rentals, schemes, arrears, approvals, compliance — without switching products. See the pricing page for how seats and books are billed.
Stop stitching tools together.
Rentals, schemes, maintenance — one record.
Walk through the integrated rental and scheme surface, the trust ledger, the levy roll and the WhatsApp maintenance dispatch with someone from the team.