Question 1

Who is Stem built for?

Accepted Answer

STEMHQ is built for UK landlords, HMO operators, and letting agents. Track arrears, stay RRA compliant, manage certificates, and escalate to Section 8, whether you run one HMO or a full portfolio. Agents get a multi-branch workspace to manage landlord clients too.

Question 2

What is the free tier?

Accepted Answer

Free accounts include up to 3 active rental agreements, unlimited properties, with no time limit. You get the dashboard, arrears tracking, compliance vault, document uploads, APA case tracking, Section 8 notices, rent statement PDFs, deposit tracking and prescribed information PDFs, escalation logging, RRA timeline tracking, guarantor fields, and student tenancy tools (Ground 4A). Form 3A court packs, automated chasers, and R2R margin mode need Premium. No credit card required.

Question 3

How does pricing work for larger portfolios?

Accepted Answer

Premium is £8.00 per active rental agreement per month, or £80 per active rental agreement per year (two months free on annual billing). 10 active rental agreements costs £80/month or £800/year. 30 active rental agreements is £240/month or £2,400/year. You only pay for active rental agreements. Add or end agreements and your bill adjusts automatically.

Question 4

How do I get started after registering?

Accepted Answer

Create a free account at app.stemhq.co.uk/register. You can sign in straight away with no admin approval step. Use the setup wizard to add your first property and tenants, choose your account type (landlord or letting agent), and switch on automated chasers if you want them.

Question 5

Can I cancel my subscription?

Accepted Answer

Yes, any time. Cancel from your account page and you drop back to the free tier limits at the end of your billing period. Your data stays safe.

Question 6

What can STEMHQ actually do day to day?

Accepted Answer

The core workspace covers four areas: an arrears dashboard showing every tenant's rent status in real time; a compliance vault tracking Gas Safety, EICR, EPC, HMO licences and RRA 2026 statutory documents with expiry alerts; a legal readiness system for Section 8 Form 3A notices and court evidence packs; and portfolio analytics rolling up collection rate, rent roll, and arrears exposure across everything you manage. Beyond the core workspace there are purpose-built tools for specific situations: an HHSRS hazard tracker, Alternative Payment Arrangement letters for Universal Credit tenants, and a read-only solicitor escalation portal for when a case reaches court.

Question 7

What is the Renters' Rights Act 2026 and why does it matter?

Accepted Answer

The Renters' Rights Act 2026 changes how rent arrears possession works in England. Mandatory Ground 8 now requires at least 13 weeks of rent arrears (not two months). Discretionary grounds can apply earlier, and landlords need clearer evidence trails before serving notice or going to court. STEMHQ tracks each tenant against the RRA timeline: arrears day counts and progress toward the 13-week Ground 8 mandatory threshold. When thresholds are hit, STEM helps you act with rent statement PDFs, Section 8 notice generation, Form 3A court evidence packs (Premium), APA/DWP packs for benefits tenants, and a step-by-step escalation log so you know where every case stands before you instruct a solicitor.

Question 8

How does arrears tracking work?

Accepted Answer

Every tenancy shows a live arrears position, colour-coded by risk, with days overdue and balance owed updated as you record payments. STEMHQ then structures escalation as a five-step path: informal contact, formal letter, Alternative Payment Arrangement (for Universal Credit tenants), Section 8 notice, and court claim, with each step timestamped so you have a defensible record of what you did and when.

Question 9

What compliance certificates and documents does STEMHQ track?

Accepted Answer

Gas Safety certificates, EICR, EPC, HMO licences, and Fire Risk Assessments are tracked per property with automatic expiry alerts. Per tenancy, STEMHQ tracks the statutory pre-condition documents needed for a valid Section 8 notice: the written statement of terms, the How to Rent guide, the RRA 2026 Information Sheet, and the GDPR privacy notice, each with a served date and a progress checklist.

Question 10

Can STEMHQ generate a Section 8 notice for me?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The Form 3A wizard walks you through selecting the grounds that apply (typically Ground 8 for mandatory arrears possession, alongside Grounds 10 and 11 as a fallback), auto-calculates the correct notice period, and checks your compliance checklist before letting you generate the notice, so you're less likely to serve a notice that gets thrown out for a missing document or an incorrect date. All generated documents are templates and should be reviewed against your specific circumstances, ideally with a solicitor, before serving.

Question 11

Can I generate other legal documents?

Accepted Answer

Stem generates Section 8 notices and rent statement PDFs on the free tier. Form 3A court evidence packs are a premium feature. All documents are templates. Review with a solicitor before serving.

Question 12

What is the Solicitor Escalation Portal and how does it work?

Accepted Answer

When a case reaches the point of needing legal representation, you invite your solicitor by email with their SRA number, which lets you verify their registration at sra.org.uk before granting any access. The solicitor must accept a Data Processing Agreement before they can see anything, and once they do, their access is scoped to that single tenant's case pack only: rent ledger, notices, certificates, and deposit compliance, nothing else in your portfolio. Every action (invite sent, DPA accepted, case viewed, document downloaded) is recorded in an append-only audit log, and you can revoke access with one click the moment proceedings conclude.

Question 13

Does STEMHQ handle Universal Credit tenants and Alternative Payment Arrangements?

Accepted Answer

Yes. STEMHQ flags Universal Credit tenants in the arrears dashboard and tracks each APA case (created, updated, outcome) against the tenancy, and generates a pre-filled letter to the relevant Jobcentre Plus office with the tenant's details and arrears figures, ready for you to send by email or post.

Question 14

Does STEMHQ track pet requests under the Renters' Rights Act?

Accepted Answer

Pet request tracking is on our roadmap but not live yet. Right now you'll need to log written pet requests and the 28-day decision deadline yourself; we'll update this answer when the feature ships.

Question 15

Can STEMHQ help with Making Tax Digital (MTD ITSA)?

Accepted Answer

The free MTD ITSA Eligibility Checker tool on the site tells you which mandation phase applies to you based on your total property income. Built-in income and expense tracking with MTD export is on our roadmap but not live in the platform yet.

Question 16

Do you support letting and estate agents?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Letting and estate agents get a multi-branch agent workspace to manage every landlord client from one place: arrears, compliance, and collection rates aggregated across your whole managed book, with drill-down into each client's portfolio. Each landlord client can be given a branded, read-only portal showing their portfolio and compliance health in real time, so they can see you protecting their income. Agency pricing is a flat monthly base fee with no per-property charges - Growth £199/mo (up to 50 clients), Scale £299/mo (up to 150 clients), Enterprise from £799/mo (unlimited clients). Get in touch for a demo.

Question 17

How does the letting agent side of STEMHQ work?

Accepted Answer

Agents get a multi-branch workspace: staff see only their own branch, while owners see the whole managed book. Every landlord client's arrears, compliance, and collection rate rolls up into one agency-wide view, so you can see which client relationships are carrying the most risk without logging into each one separately. Each landlord client can be given their own branded, read-only portal showing their portfolio and compliance health, so they can see their income being protected without needing write access to anything.

Question 18

What can my landlord clients see if I'm an agent?

Accepted Answer

Landlord clients get a read-only view of their own portfolio: properties, arrears position, and compliance status, under your agency's branding. They cannot see other landlords' properties, and they cannot edit records directly; write access stays with the agency.

Question 19

Is STEMHQ suitable for student accommodation providers and student HMOs?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Student HMOs carry the same compliance requirements as any other HMO (Gas Safety, EICR, EPC, fire safety, and mandatory licensing at 5+ occupants), and STEMHQ tracks all of it the same way it does for any property. What's different operationally is guarantors and joint tenancies, both of which STEMHQ handles: guarantor contact details sit against the tenancy so they can be chased in parallel with the tenant, and escalation on a joint tenancy is recorded against all named tenants, reflecting the joint and several liability that applies to most shared student agreements.

Question 20

How does STEMHQ handle HMOs specifically?

Accepted Answer

The HHSRS hazard tracker lets you log and track all 29 hazard categories per property, with severity, inspection dates, and resolution status, which matters more for HMOs given how much more frequently they're inspected than single-let properties. Licence numbers, issue dates, and expiry dates are tracked alongside the standard certificate set.

Question 21

Is STEMHQ suitable for portfolio landlords with many properties?

Accepted Answer

Yes, this is the core use case. Portfolio analytics rolls up rent roll, arrears exposure, and collection rate across every property you own, and the compliance vault tracks certificates across the whole portfolio rather than property by property, so growth doesn't mean tracking more things by memory.

Question 22

Is my data secure?

Accepted Answer

Every query is scoped to the operator or agency organisation that owns the record, so one account cannot see another account's tenants or properties. All data is encrypted in transit over HTTPS, and sensitive fields such as National Insurance numbers are encrypted at the database field level, not just relied on for disk-level encryption. For the full detail on how we handle solicitor data sharing, GDPR, and access control, see our Security & Compliance page.

Question 23

Is STEMHQ UK GDPR compliant?

Accepted Answer

STEMHQ is built with UK GDPR obligations in mind: data sharing with solicitors is gated behind a Data Processing Agreement, access is scoped to what's necessary for the purpose, and an audit trail records what was accessed and when. Whether your own processing is fully compliant depends on how you use the platform, so this isn't a substitute for your own legal advice on specific situations.

Question 24

Does STEMHQ replace the need for a solicitor?

Accepted Answer

No. STEMHQ generates documents from templates, tracks compliance, and gives your solicitor secure access to a case file when proceedings reach that stage, but it doesn't provide legal advice. Always have a solicitor review your specific circumstances before serving a notice or proceeding to court, particularly on anything contested or unusual.

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