Tenant, repairs and rent-tax paperwork handled for NRIs who let a flat in India
TL;DR Yonderlet runs a rented flat for an owner who lives abroad. It finds and checks the tenant, inspects the flat, books repairs and, unusually, does the tenant's tax paperwork on rent paid to a non-resident. The owner pays a monthly fee. It works if that paperwork is what keeps good tenants away.
India counts 1.78 crore NRIs[1], and a lot of them still own a flat back home. Letting it out from Dubai or Toronto is harder than it looks. Rent paid to a non-resident landlord carries 30% TDS under Section 195, 31.2% with cess, and there's no minimum rent below which it stops applying[2]. The tenant, not the owner, has to get a TAN, deposit the tax and issue a certificate[3]. From 1 April 2026 the remittance forms changed too, under the Income-tax Act, 2025[2].
Most salaried tenants have never filed a TDS return in their lives. Some skip it and leave both sides exposed to interest, and others just pick a flat owned by a resident instead.
Meanwhile the owner can't see the leak, the unpaid society dues or the tenant who has quietly sublet.
What it does, in regulatory terms: property management and paperwork support. Tax returns are prepared and signed by a partner chartered accountant, and Yonderlet holds no client money. Rent goes straight from the tenant to the owner's NRO account.
The owner signs one mandate. Yonderlet lists the flat, verifies tenants, drafts the agreement and registers it with the Rent Authority where a state has adopted the Model Tenancy Act[4]. Tenants get a pitch no other listing offers - the TAN application, the monthly tax challan and the quarterly return are all done for them, with the cost built into the owner's fee. Where the owner's real tax is lower, the partner accountant applies for a lower-deduction certificate.
Every quarter the owner gets a dated photo inspection, a repairs log with bills, and a tax summary that matches the credit in their own tax statement.
The seed pitched AI automation for landlords in general. We narrowed it, because no software is going to fix a leak in Pune or file a return for a tenant who has never heard of one.
The owner pays and the tenant is the user who benefits. Our working assumption is ₹3,000–6,000 a month per flat, or about one month's rent a year, and that needs testing. One Bengaluru property manager charges only once a flat is let[5], which sets what owners expect. NRIs who already pay a CA for their own return are your easiest buyers.
Two dated changes help. The Income-tax Act, 2025 took effect for remittances from 1 April 2026 and replaced the familiar forms, so even tenants who knew the old routine need help now[2]. The Model Tenancy Act gives states a template for registering agreements and settling disputes through a Rent Authority[4], which suits a manager who keeps clean records.
There's no public figure for the number of NRI-owned flats on rent. The firm number is the headcount - 17,760,528 NRIs as of January 2026[1]. Even one rented flat per hundred NRIs would mean about 1.7 lakh homes, but that ratio is our assumption, not data.
So size the market bottom-up in two cities before you raise a rupee.
Bengaluru-based property managers run tenant finding, rent collection and photo inspections in Bengaluru, Gurgaon and Mumbai, and features NRI owners[5]. A big broker-free listings portal lists a service for NRIs but shows no detail on its home page[6]. One PG-software firm publishes guides on NRI rent tax but builds software for PG owners[2].
The gap is the tenant side. Nobody we found sells the tax filing as part of the landlord's package.
| Difficulty | Moderate (38/100) |
| Starting capital | ₹45–90 L |
| Time to launch | 4–6 months |
The software is simple. The hard parts are a dependable repair network in each city, a CA partner who can handle hundreds of small quarterly returns without slipping up, and the trust of owners who were burned by a relative or a broker before.
No single national licence applies, but tax and tenancy rules shape the service.
Building this outside India? The categories above usually have a local equivalent, so check with your own regulator.
Don't trust AI with tax calculations, filings or tenant screening decisions. The CA signs every return, and a person decides who moves in.
Want to work out the AI layer for Yonderlet? Talk to Yash →
Here's what can go south -
I'd say this is worth a look if you have property-operations experience and a CA co-founder or firm partner. If you're a software-only team then pass, honestly. Prove one thing first - that the TDS package changes tenant behaviour, so flats offered with it let faster than similar NRI-owned flats without it.
Plan for roughly ₹45–90 L, mostly on city operations staff, the repair network and the CA partnership. Launch takes 4–6 months.
There's no single national licence, but tenancy law applies where states have adopted the Model Tenancy Act. TDS filings for tenants must be prepared and signed by a chartered accountant.
Yes, absentee landlords exist in many markets. The tenant tax angle is specific to India, so you'd need a different hook locally.
The free Yonderlet validation kit has the line-by-line capital breakdown, the effort scoring, the tax and tenancy checklist, a 14-day validation sprint with pass/fail targets, a 90-day launch plan, 10 interview questions for owners and tenants, and 5 assumptions to test. Download the kit →
Thinking about building Yonderlet or something close to it? The make-or-break work is pricing a service that includes on-ground repairs and tax filing without losing money on the cheaper flats. If you need a hand with that, you know where to find me. Talk to Yash →
For illustration only. Names are fictional and ideas hypothetical; sourced facts are real but may be out of date. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice, and Yash Khatri is not personally liable for any use of it. Read the full disclaimer.