Lease Renewal Time...
I’m a first year landlord. (Three family.) My very wonderful, perfect tenant’s lease is up at the end of the month. We signed your basic blumberg one-year lease. Can I just have them sign a rider extending their lease, or do I need to do a new lease? I’m not raising their rent. Thanks.
I’m a first year landlord. (Three family.) My very wonderful, perfect tenant’s lease is up at the end of the month. We signed your basic blumberg one-year lease. Can I just have them sign a rider extending their lease, or do I need to do a new lease? I’m not raising their rent. Thanks.
When I purchased my 4 family home, I was a first time landlord and my attorney said the single most important piece of advice he could give me was to make sure my leases WERE month-to-month. This was to make it easier if I needed to evict anyone. I will tell you that this worked to my advantage once and “against” me once, when one of two roommates fell in love and wanted to move in with her boyfriend, the other decided to get her own place… and I’d have let them replace themselves even if they had a year lease!
I found that normal, decent tenants were only concerned about making sure the rent wouldn’t fluctuate, so I always provided a one year price guarantee on a month-to-month lease.
Luckily, the rental market remains very strong, and I’ve never had an un-rented apartment for more than the week it took to paint. So there are pros and cons to both arguments.
To the poster’s original question, for renewals, I send a letter thanking my tenant for their year, requesting info on whether there are any maintenance issues that need to be addressed, asking them if they are planning to stay another year and requesting they sign and return the bottom of the letter if they are going to stay.
Good luck!
The landlord needs to clarify whether the lease extension would be on a month to month basis or for another year.
Month to month = bad idea
4:12 is right. Don’t go month to month, ever, as it leaves you wide open. Not to say that you will have a problem with this tenant, but you should protect yourself and be consistent in your leasing.
don’t go month to month: we did that and found out when we had a tenant not paying rent that we no longer had any legal protections, even though we had a signed agreement with them extending the terms of the lease on a month by month basis. better to sign a new lease.
Or if you don’t, you just go month to month with other terms unchanged.
Just sign a new lease.