LearnThe lifecycle
Renewal
A renewal is not a fresh start. When a tenancy is working, the last thing anyone needs is a new application, a new deposit, and a new pile of paperwork. Haven keeps everything that still holds and only asks you to agree to what actually changes.
When and how renewal comes up
Every lease has an end date. As it approaches, Haven surfaces the renewal to both sides in good time, the owner in the Owner app, the renter in the Renter app, so the decision is made deliberately, not in the last week before the term runs out.
The prompt is the same for everyone: the current lease, its end date, and a simple choice, continue, change something, or end the tenancy. Nothing renews silently and nothing lapses by accident. Both parties see the same facts at the same time.
What local law requires around notice periods and renewal terms is respected. Haven's job is to make the timing visible and the paperwork trivial, not to decide the tenancy for you.
Reviewing terms and any rent change
A renewal starts from the lease you already have. Every clause carries forward as written unless someone proposes a change, so the default is continuity, not renegotiation.
If the owner proposes a new rent, the renter sees the exact figure, the current figure, and the difference, before anything is agreed. There is no ambiguity about what is being asked and no change takes effect until it is signed. A proposed rent is a proposal until both sides accept it.
Other terms, the length of the new period, any adjustment to what is included, are presented the same plain way. You review what is different from today, not the whole document from scratch.
Agreeing and re-signing without starting over
Once the terms are agreed, both parties re-sign. This is a genuine e-signature on the new lease, with the same legal weight as the original, so the tenancy continues on a clear, current, mutually signed agreement.
You do not re-verify your identity, re-run an application, or re-establish who you are. That work was done when the tenancy began and it still stands. Renewal asks only for agreement to the new terms.
Leases are immutable and append-only. The renewed lease is a new record that references the one before it, the history stays intact and auditable, and nothing is quietly overwritten. You can always see the chain of what was agreed, and when.
What carries over automatically
The deposit stays exactly where it is, held in escrow, in the renter's name, untouched by the renewal. There is no reason to move it, refund it, and collect it again, so Haven doesn't.
SEPA autopay continues without interruption. If the rent is unchanged, collection carries on as before. If a new rent was agreed, the amount updates to match the signed lease from the date the new term begins, the mandate stays live, only the figure moves.
Everything attached to the tenancy carries forward too: the payment history, the double-entry ledger, maintenance records, invoices, and documents. Renewal continues one unbroken record rather than opening a second, disconnected one.
Choosing not to renew, cleanly
Either side can decide not to renew. When that happens, Haven treats it as the ordinary end of a term, not a dispute, the tenancy runs to its end date and then moves into move-out.
The renter's deposit is not forfeited by declining to renew. It stays in escrow and is settled at move-out on the actual condition of the home, through the normal process, with the ledger showing where every cent goes.
Autopay stops when the lease ends, so no collection runs past the term. The decision is recorded, both sides have the same clear picture of what happens next, and the tenancy closes without loose ends.