Getting started as a landlord
From an empty account to a listing that renters can actually find: choosing the right role, understanding what a verification tier claims, gathering the evidence behind it, and publishing a listing that survives review.
Anyone who owns one or a few homes in Ghana and wants to let them directly, without an estate agent in the middle.
By the end you can
- Open a landlord account and know which roles are allowed to list.
- Explain what bronze, silver and gold each claim, and what evidence each one needs.
- Have every verification document ready in the form a reviewer needs it.
- Create a listing that passes validation and reaches admin review.
- Know the two separate conditions a listing must meet before the public can see it.
- Set an advance and a deposit, and see the move-in total a renter will see.
Lesson 1 of 6
Open an account with the right role
Objective. A working landlord account, on a role that is permitted to list property.
Domicium has no estate agent role. Only three roles may create a property listing: landlord, property owner and property manager. That restriction is enforced by the database, not by hiding a menu item, so there is no route around it and no point looking for one.
Property managers are welcome. A manager acting for a verified owner is a legitimate lister. A broker who neither owns the property nor holds written authority from the owner is not, and the checks later in this course are built to tell the two apart.
- 1Open /signup.
- 2Under the heading “I want to…”, choose the card “I’m a landlord / owner”. If you run property for other people, choose “I manage property” instead.
- 3Enter your full name, your email address and a password of at least eight characters.
- 4Read the consent line and tick the box. It covers how your Ghana Card and selfie are used for identity checks. It is never pre-ticked.
- 5Press “Create free account”.
You did it right if. You land on /dashboard/landlord and the page heading reads “Landlord dashboard”, with “Manage portfolio” and “+ New listing” buttons in the header.
Watch out. Sign-up offers four roles: renter, landlord/owner, property manager and contractor. There is no “property owner” card, and there is no screen anywhere in the app for changing your role afterwards. If you pick the wrong one you will need Domicium support to correct it, so read the four blurbs before you click.
about 5 minutes
Lesson 2 of 6
What each verification tier actually claims
Objective. The ability to name your current tier and the exact checks standing between you and the next one.
There are four tiers: unverified, bronze, silver and gold. They are cumulative — silver requires everything bronze requires, and gold requires everything silver requires. A tier is only granted when the evidence behind it is recorded on the account, and the database refuses an approval whose checks are missing.
This matters more than an ordinary status field because trust drives search ranking. A badge granted without its evidence would outrank honest listings, which is why verification cannot be bought at any price and why the requirements below are not negotiable.
- 1Open your landlord dashboard and choose “Verification” in the left rail, under “Your profile”.
- 2Read the six checks listed there: phone and email, Ghana Card verified, selfie or liveness, ownership documents, bank account matched, and property inspection.
- 3Map them to tiers. Bronze needs three: email confirmed, phone confirmed, Ghana Card checked.
- 4Silver adds two more: a selfie matched against the card, and a bank account in the same verified name.
- 5Gold adds one more: the property itself inspected or video-verified.
- 6Note which of the six you can evidence today. That is your realistic ceiling.
You did it right if. You can state your current tier and list, by name, every check still outstanding for the next tier up.
Watch out. The bank-account check is the one an agent posing as a landlord cannot pass, because rent must be payable to the verified person rather than to a third party. If the account is in a company name, a spouse’s name or a nickname, silver will be refused however good the rest of the file is. Sort the account name out before you submit anything.
about 7 minutes
Lesson 3 of 6
Prepare your verification evidence
Objective. Every document a verification officer needs, in the right form, with the names matching.
Verification is a review by a person, not an automatic upgrade. An officer looks at what you supply, records which specific checks passed, and only then may a tier be granted.
Self-serve upload is not live yet. The “Upload” buttons on /dashboard/landlord/verify are placeholders — pressing one does nothing and stores nothing, and the two rows already marked done there are illustrative rather than your live record. This lesson is therefore about getting the file ready, and knowing that the submission route runs through Domicium support rather than through that page.
- 1Open /dashboard/landlord/verify and read the six rows and the tier each one unlocks. Treat it as a checklist, not as a form.
- 2Photograph the front and the back of your Ghana Card, flat, in daylight, with all four corners in frame and no glare over the number.
- 3Take a selfie holding the card, with your face and the card both legible.
- 4Find your proof of authority to let: an indenture, a land title certificate, an allocation letter, or — if you manage for someone else — a written management authority signed by the owner.
- 5Find a utility bill or a property tax receipt showing the property address.
- 6Check your bank account name character for character against the name on your Ghana Card.
- 7Keep the set together. Do not attach any of it to a listing and never send it to a prospective tenant.
You did it right if. You have six legible files in one place, and the name on the bank account matches the name on the Ghana Card exactly.
Watch out. Do not wait on the “Upload” buttons — they are not connected to anything. Equally, do not ask for a tier ahead of the evidence: an approval whose checks are not recorded is refused by the database, so a friendly reviewer cannot grant it either.
about 10 minutes
Lesson 4 of 6
Create your first listing
Objective. A complete listing submitted for review, with no validation errors.
The listing form is long because the checks behind it are strict. A title that says one bedroom on a two-bedroom flat, a retail unit filed as an office, or a photograph already used on another listing will all be refused, because each of those is a real pattern from real fabricated listings.
Fill it in one pass with the facts to hand. There is no edit-listing screen after submission, so a mistake means starting again.
- 1From the landlord dashboard, press “+ New listing”.
- 2Under “Basics”, enter the property title, type, region, city, area and Ghana Post GPS. Write the description yourself, or press “Write with AI” and then correct it — it is a draft, not a description of your property.
- 3Under “Rent & terms”, enter the rent and choose the payment frequency. Set “Security deposit (months)” and “Advance required (months)”. The advance field defaults to 12; change it if that is not what you are asking.
- 4Set “Available from”.
- 5Under “Details”, set bedrooms, bathrooms and parking, choose the water and electricity meter options, tick the amenities that are genuinely there, and add any house rules one per line.
- 6Under “Photos”, upload up to eight images of this property. Only the first eight are kept.
- 7Press “Submit for review”.
You did it right if. You return to the landlord dashboard, a banner confirms the listing was submitted and is pending admin review, and the listing appears in the “Your listings” table with a review status.
Watch out. Only the first validation error is shown, in a red banner at the top of the form. Fix it and resubmit, then read the banner again — there may be another behind it. The most common one is a title that contradicts the bedroom count, so make the two agree before you press submit.
about 15 minutes
Lesson 5 of 6
Get your listing in front of renters
Objective. An understanding of the two independent conditions that put a listing into public search.
Two things must both be true before a visitor can see your listing. The listing itself must be approved by an admin and set to active, and the property must carry a verification tier of bronze or above. Either one alone is not enough.
Bronze is the floor because it is the first tier that requires evidence — an identity document checked against a real person. Below that, calling a listing verified would not be true, so the database refuses to serve it publicly at all.
- 1Confirm your tier on the Verification panel of the landlord dashboard. If it says unverified, your listing cannot go public whatever review decides.
- 2Wait for the review outcome. Admin approval happens in the Domicium admin console; there is no control on your dashboard that speeds it up or bypasses it.
- 3Once your dashboard shows the listing as active, open /search in a logged-out browser window.
- 4Set the “Verification” filter to “Bronze+” and pick your region.
- 5Find your listing in the results and open it.
You did it right if. The listing appears in /search results carrying a bronze, silver or gold badge, and its page at /property/<slug> shows a “What has been checked” panel.
Watch out. An approved, active listing on an unverified property stays invisible, and nothing on the landlord dashboard explains why. If review has passed and the listing still does not appear, check your tier first — that is almost always the reason.
about 8 minutes
Lesson 6 of 6
Set the advance and the deposit
Objective. Money terms a renter can understand at a glance, and an honest view of what the platform will say about them.
The headline rent is the least useful number on a listing page. What a renter needs is the move-in total: the rent advance, plus the refundable security deposit, plus any fees. Domicium itemises these rather than merging them, because the advance is not refundable and the deposit is, and that difference matters most at the end of a tenancy.
Twelve months in advance is the Ghanaian norm and the platform treats it as such. The Rent Act 1963 (Act 220) restricts advance rent and is not consistently enforced; Domicium informs renters of that position without alleging that any particular landlord is breaking the law.
- 1On the listing form under “Rent & terms”, set “Advance required (months)” to the number of months you are actually asking for.
- 2Set “Security deposit (months)” separately. Do not roll the deposit into the advance.
- 3Work out the move-in total yourself before you submit: monthly rent multiplied by advance months, plus monthly rent multiplied by deposit months.
- 4After the listing is live, open its public page and read the price card.
- 5Check that “Rent advance”, “Security deposit” and “Total to move in” show the figures you intended.
You did it right if. The public price card lists the advance marked “Not refundable”, the deposit marked “Refundable at the end of the tenancy”, and a total to move in that matches your own arithmetic.
Watch out. At six months or more, an amber note appears on your listing telling the renter that Act 220 restricts advance rent and that the Rent Control Department can advise them. Above twelve months, the wording hardens: the demand is described as more than is typically asked for in Ghana, and it is flagged to review staff as well. Neither blocks publication, but both are visible to every renter who opens the page.
about 8 minutes