How to Find Every Lease Expiring in the Next 90 Days

TL;DR: To find every lease expiring soon, you need the key dates from each lease in one table: commencement, expiration, renewal options and the notice deadline for each. Most teams type these into a spreadsheet once and then let it drift. A more reliable way is to read the dates straight out of the lease PDFs, including scans, and query the result: "which leases expire in the next 90 days, and which renewal notices are due before then?"

Property managers rarely miss an expiration date because they don't care. They miss it because the date lives on page 14 of a PDF, the spreadsheet was last updated two leases ago, and the renewal notice was due 60 days before the date anyone was watching.

What dates matter in a lease?

A lease abstract is a one-page summary of the terms you act on. There's no regulation defining one, but in practice these are the fields worth extracting from every lease:

The notice deadline is the field that costs money. A tenant with a renewal option usually has to exercise it in writing by a set date, and a landlord who wants to re-let or reprice needs to know before that window closes.

For finance teams, the same dates feed lease accounting. Under ASC 842, the lease term includes renewal periods the lessee is "reasonably certain to exercise," which is one more reason renewal options need to be on record, not buried. (Deloitte, ASC 842 lease term)

Why do lease spreadsheets go stale?

Three reasons, all predictable:

• Amendments. A lease amended in year three has a new expiration date in a different document. The spreadsheet still shows the original.
• Manual entry. Typing 200 leases' dates once is a week of work, and nobody budgets the time to re-check them.
• Notice dates are calculated, not written. The lease says "no less than 180 days before expiration," so someone has to work out the date for each one.

How do you build a lease abstract from a folder of PDFs?

By hand, it's the spreadsheet route: open each lease and amendment, find each field, type it in. Allow 15 to 30 minutes per lease.

With AI, the reading is done for you. The Drive AI can read every lease in a folder and build the abstract as a table:

Read every lease and amendment under /Properties and list the property, unit, tenant, commencement date, expiration date, renewal options and renewal notice period. Which leases expire in the next 90 days?

The agent reads each document, scans included, extracts those fields into a table and answers with the leases that fall in the window. It tells you how many files the answer covers, so you can tell straight away if a folder was missed. Then keep going:

• For each, work out the date renewal notice is due.
• Which tenants have a renewal option at fixed rent?
• Export the table to Excel.
• Move the leases expiring this year into /Renewals 2026. That becomes a change you preview and approve, and can undo.

It works on lease folders in The Drive AI and in connected Google Drive, OneDrive, SharePoint or Dropbox (connected drives need the Max plan or any Team plan). If you'll ask every month, the table can stay current as new leases and amendments are added.

Treat the result like any abstract: spot-check a sample against the leases, and have someone confirm the notice dates on the ones that matter most. AI reads leases well, but an unusual clause can still be read wrong.

How should lease files be organized?

The abstract is easier to keep accurate if the files are tidy:

• One folder per property, one subfolder per unit or tenant.
• Keep the lease and every amendment together, named so they sort in order: Lease - Unit 4B - Smith - 2024-03-01.pdf, Amendment 1 - Unit 4B - Smith - 2026-02-15.pdf.
• Separate current from past tenants. Move expired leases to an Archive folder per property rather than deleting them.
• File new leases the same way automatically. A workflow on your incoming folder can read each new lease, rename it, and file it under the right property and unit.

More on structure in how to organize real estate transaction files.

For the whole property management drive, not just leases, see Google Drive folder structure for property managers.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I find which leases are expiring soon?

Collect every lease's expiration date in one table and filter it by date. You can type the dates in from each lease, or use a tool that reads them from the lease PDFs and answers "which leases expire in the next 90 days."

What is a lease abstract?

A short summary of a lease's key terms: parties, premises, commencement and expiration dates, renewal and termination options, rent and escalations, deposit, and operating cost terms. It lets you act on a lease without rereading it.

What is a renewal notice deadline?

The last date a tenant (or landlord) can give written notice to exercise or decline a renewal option, usually set as a number of days before the lease expires. Missing it can mean losing the option.

Can AI read lease agreements?

Yes. Current AI models read typed and scanned leases and can extract dates, options and rent terms. Accuracy is high on standard leases, but check a sample and confirm critical dates on unusual ones.

How long does it take to abstract a lease?

By hand, typically 15 to 30 minutes for a straightforward lease, longer with amendments. AI extraction takes seconds per lease, plus the time to review the results.

Start with next quarter

You don't need a perfect abstract of every lease to stop missing dates. Ask one question across your lease folder, which leases expire or need notice in the next 90 days, check those few by hand, and build out from there.