Case Study: Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland and Re-Leased
Chest, Heart & Stroke Scotland Elevates Portfolio Management with Re-Leased
Empowering a national charity to streamline operations, boost compliance, and unlock time for impactful work.
Chest, Heart & Stroke Scotland (CHSS) is Scotland’s largest health charity dedicated to improving the lives of people affected by chest, heart and stroke conditions, helping them live life to the full. Through its community healthcare support service and a nationwide network of nurses, support workers and volunteers CHSS ensures people across Scotland get the support they need and never have to recover alone.
Kevin Sinclair | Property Lead, Chest, Heart & Stroke Scotland
With a portfolio of 44 shops, an office, and a warehouse stretching from Forres and Elgin in the north to the borders, CHSS relies on a network of shop managers, assistant managers, and dedicated volunteers to power its retail operations and fundraising efforts. The charity’s property team is responsible for maintaining safe, compliant, and welcoming spaces for staff, volunteers, and the communities they serve.
The Challenge: Manual Systems and Growing Complexity
As CHSS’s footprint grew, operational complexity surged. Managing compliance, maintenance and documentation across dozens of locations on manual spreadsheets became unsustainable - slowing decisions and increasing risk.
“Most of the details of the property, landlord, lease, all the compliance and things like that were on a spreadsheet, which you can imagine was massive. Dates when everything’s due, dates when things have been done, dates when it’s next due. And there’s about 10 or 11 different compliances times 44 shops. So you can imagine the size of the spreadsheet.”
Key challenges included:
- Dispersed Data: Property, lease, and compliance information was spread across sprawling spreadsheets, emails, SharePoint, and team members' memories.
- Manual Processes: Tracking maintenance requests, compliance checks, and repairs relied on manual logs and unconnected systems, leading to inefficiency and risk of error.
- Limited Visibility: Without a single source of truth, it was difficult to quickly access property details, monitor budgets, or track historical maintenance.
- Risk of Missed Deadlines: Lease renewals, break clauses, and compliance dates were tracked manually, increasing the likelihood of missed notices or costly oversights.
- Team Pressure: Administrative burdens kept the team focused on paperwork rather than strategic, higher-value work.
The Solution: Re-Leased as a Centralised, Purpose-Built Platform
Recognising the need for a better way, CHSS began a comprehensive search for a property management system that could support their unique needs as a charity tenant and property operator. After evaluating local and national solutions, CHSS selected Re-Leased for its:
- Centralised Data Management: One platform for all property, lease, and compliance information.
- Cloud-Based Access: Secure, anytime access for team members working remotely and on-site.
- Maintenance & Compliance Workflows: Automated work orders, compliance scheduling, and document management.
- Reporting & Visibility: Real-time portfolio overview and the ability to generate compliance and maintenance reports.
- Scalability: Flexible to accommodate CHSS’s expanding portfolio and future growth.
- AI Capabilities: The opportunity to leverage Credia AI for further efficiency.
“We did a lot of research, spoke to a lot of local companies, Re-Leased stood out because we are the tenant, so to have all the information on there and the landlord’s details as the owner, we can still manage the property, deal with compliance, repairs, all that kind of thing. So it works quite well.”
Implementation: Transforming Workflows and Building a Single Source of Truth
The transition to Re-Leased began with consolidating current property and compliance documentation, moving away from legacy spreadsheets and manual logs.
Key steps included:
- Migrating active documents and property data from SharePoint and spreadsheets into Re-Leased.
- Training the team and onboarding shop managers, with tailored support from Re-Leased’s customer success team.
- Rolling out automated maintenance logging, work order generation, and compliance scheduling.
- Piloting AI-powered lease extraction and management tools (Credia Plus) to streamline lease administration.
“Now, everything’s in one place. Everyone can log in and see that. Whether it’s view only, administrator or property manager, everything’s there. We don’t have to search SharePoint or ask someone in the shop, ‘Do you remember this?’”
The Impact: Efficiency, Transparency, and Time Gained
While CHSS is still in the process of fully migrating legacy data, the impact of Re-Leased is already clear:
Operational Improvements
- Time Savings: Less time spent searching for documents or chasing manual updates.
- Fewer Errors: With automated reminders and centralised records, deadlines for compliance and leases don’t slip through the cracks.
- Improved Maintenance Tracking: Full history logs and work orders make it easy to track spend and warranty coverage, avoiding duplicate or unnecessary repairs.
- Enhanced Visibility: Real-time access to property and compliance status for all relevant stakeholders.
Team Empowerment
- Collaboration: Everyone, from property leads to shop managers, benefits from clear, up-to-date information.
- Support for Remote Work: Cloud access enables flexible working and faster response to issues across Scotland.
Strategic Value
- Budget Control: Ability to monitor repairs and maintenance against shop-level budgets.
- Future-Proofing: Building the foundation for stronger, data-driven property management and continuous improvement.
“It’s made it more efficient and slicker. We’re still uploading things, but we’re in a better place. It’s freeing up time, much better than using a spreadsheet which you know mistakes can be made or it can be lost.”
Deep Dive: AI-Powered Lease Management with Credia Plus
Looking ahead, CHSS is looking forward to piloting Re-Leased’s Credia Plus to further streamline complex lease management.
“To actually drop and drag a lease into a box where it then tells you what you’re looking for would save a mammoth amount of time and human error. Not just leases - contractors, insurance, invoices, quotes. That was a big thing.”
- Automated Lease Extraction: Drag-and-drop functionality identifies and populates key lease dates, break clauses, and obligations.
- Reduced Manual Entry: AI minimises human error and accelerates onboarding of legacy leases.
- Actionable Insights: Fast, accurate reporting on lease events supports better decision-making.
Human Perspective: Voice of the Property Lead
The Re-Leased platform is more than a technology upgrade it’s a catalyst for cultural change within CHSS’s property team.
“I would recommend it to anyone who is in a similar position to ourselves. If you’re a small company and you’re getting bigger, get on the system now. If you’re a big company, you’d need something like a property management system anyway. You can’t run it on spreadsheet or emails or SharePoint or paperwork - it just doesn’t work.”
Looking Forward: Building on Success
CHSS will maximise the value of Re-Leased by finalising the migration of all legacy lease and compliance data, expanding AI-powered automation across lease and document management, deepening integration with finance and accounts for true end-to-end visibility, and continually sharpening workflows and training so every team member is equipped to do their best work.
Together, these priorities will turn today’s momentum into a scalable, resilient operating model freeing more time for frontline impact.
