Owner portal and statements in three languages
The owner portal, the monthly statement PDF, and the emailed report render in English, Portuguese or Spanish. The owner picks the language once. You send the same file to every owner.
For US property managers with owners abroad
You manage US rentals for owners who live in another country.
Light Property is property management software for that job.
The problem you actually have
My owners cannot read an English statement. Every month I copy the same numbers into WhatsApp in Portuguese or Spanish.
When I collect rent for an owner who lives outside the US, I am the withholding agent. If I do not withhold, the tax comes out of me.
Every property tool assumes the owner has an SSN. There is nowhere to record a W-8BEN, a treaty rate, or when the certificate expires.
What Light Property does
The features you already need from a property manager, rebuilt around the foreign owner.
Per-owner financial reporting
One owner, one portfolio, one statement. Rent, management fee, HOA, repairs and withholding are itemised so the owner sees where the money went.
Tax status and withholding certificate tracking
Record each owner's tax residency, W-8BEN signed date and expiration, and treaty rate. The statement applies the right withholding rate and feeds the 1042-S worksheet.
Document delivery by expiring secure link
Owner reports and tax documents are delivered through short-lived signed URLs from a private bucket. Nothing sits in a public inbox forever.
Online rent collection
Tenants pay by card or ACH through Stripe. Payouts and processing fees reconcile to the ledger and to the owner statement in USD.
Built for cross-border owners
Switch the sample statement between English, Portuguese and Spanish. Your owners see the same file in whichever language they speak — the numbers, the labels, the withholding footnote.
Currency is USD throughout. Formatting adapts per locale.
Sample owner statement
Owner statement
Maria Silva — Portfolio
Period: May 2026
11835 Gold Creek Dr, Orlando FL
- Rent collected
- $2,400.00
- Management fee (10%)
- -$240.00
- HOA
- -$185.00
- Repairs
- -$120.00
- Withholding on non-resident owner (30%)
- -$556.50
- Net remitted to owner
- $1,298.50
Withholding recorded for Form 1042-S. Reduced treaty rate available with a valid W-8BEN on file.
Who this is not for
If every owner in your book is a US person and none of them ever asks for a Portuguese or Spanish statement, you do not need this. The cross-border tracking becomes overhead you do not use.
If you run trust accounting at two thousand doors and need bank-level accounting integrations, look at Buildium or AppFolio. We are built for managers with 15 to 200 doors who spend their week talking to owners over WhatsApp.
Saying this out loud makes the rest of the page honest.
Frequently asked questions
- Do I have to withhold tax on rent I collect for a foreign owner?
- Generally yes. Rental income paid to a nonresident owner is US-source FDAP income and, unless the owner has elected under IRC §871(d) to treat it as effectively connected, the payer is required to withhold 30 percent (or the reduced treaty rate) and report on Form 1042-S. As the person collecting the rent, you are typically the withholding agent. Light Property tracks the owner's status and applies the correct rate on the statement.
- What is a W-8BEN and how long is it valid?
- Form W-8BEN is how a nonresident individual owner certifies foreign status and claims a reduced tax-treaty rate on US-source income. A signed W-8BEN is generally valid from the date it is signed through the end of the third succeeding calendar year, unless information on the form changes. Light Property records the signed date and warns you before it expires.
- What is Form 1042-S?
- Form 1042-S is the annual information return that reports US-source income paid to a foreign person and the tax withheld on it. If you withhold on rent paid to a nonresident owner, you file a 1042-S per owner and a summary Form 1042. Light Property prepares a per-owner withholding summary so you or your CPA can complete the filing.
- Does this software file my tax forms for me?
- No. Light Property prepares and tracks the numbers, the certificates, and the per-owner withholding. You or your CPA file Form 1042, Form 1042-S, and any state returns.
- Can my owners see their statements in Portuguese or Spanish?
- Yes. Each owner sets their language once. From that point the owner portal, the monthly statement PDF, and the emails they receive from you are in that language. English, Portuguese and Spanish are supported today.
- Do you work for managers whose owners are all US-based?
- Yes — the same platform runs a domestic portfolio. See the generic overview at /property-management-software.
Simple pricing
Per-property monthly pricing, with volume tiers for agencies. No per-owner fee for adding a foreign owner.