Lease Rider for Garden Apartment
We are going to be renting out the garden apartment of our house for the first time. The apartment comes with exclusive use of the garden (access is only available through the garden apartment). At the moment the garden is very small and easily maintained, but it is also in good shape and we’d like to keep it that way. The tenants we’ve found said they are interested in maintaining it, but also that they are not that knowledgable about gardening. The maintenance involves mostly just watering and occasional pruning, along with cutting back some plants for the winter.
Is there anything we can put in the lease rider to cover this situation? I just want to be sure it stays nicely maintained, and ensure that they don’t rip anything out without our knowledge. In order to access the garden we would need to go through their apartment, so realistically they need to water the plants, but we can do the pruning and cutting back if they don’t want to deal with that part.
Any suggestions for handling this situation in a way that makes everyone happy would be greatly appreciated.
haven19
in Landlord 13 years and 11 months ago
8
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8 replies
haven19 | 13 years and 11 months ago
Thanks, I appreciate the responses and you have all given me a lot to think about in terms of handling the situation.
Goatcrapp | 13 years and 11 months ago
I’m writing this as a landlord.. I’m going to cut it to you straight…
you’re renting out a garden with exclusive access. It simply isn’t your garden anymore, and would be silly to continue thinking of it as such until such a time where you make it a common access, or take back the garden level apartment.
Frankly, if you’re choosing to rent your garden apartment.. assuming the tenant is paying more for the privilege, it pretty much becomes their garden. If you have a few specific prize plants you’d like to make sure are kept well – then specify their care, or better yet – remove them and take them. Anything big enough to not be removable is likely tapped into the water table anyways, and care shouldn’t be very needy… but otherwise – let the tenant do as they please with a garden they are renting from you. You’ll have a much improved relationship for it. Its not just some alleyway you are providing access to – one of the draws of a garden apartment is that said garden becomes part of a renter’s home. I’m occupying my garden level in my building currently, but when i leave, the tenant who occupies it can garden as they see fit.. i’ll happily lend advice, but short of removing an old tree that is present, i’d have no restrictions. Even the old tree can (and should) go if it becomes diseased, or dies and becomes a danger to anyone.
As you expressed – they are interested in gardening, but aren’t sure how. Help them with advice, but don’t burden them with a rider.. You should dig up any plants you are sensitive about, and place them in pots, half barrels, etc where you can access them. You shouldn’t restrict what the tenants can or can’t do, even if it means removing your strawberries, and planting potatoes instead. (for example lol)
Since not even the best gardener can guarantee a plant’s health, a rider such as that can have no warranty whatsoever of the health of the plants.. and if you create an overly restrictive garden policy, you’ll likely find your prize rosebush dead with a look of “i dunno what happened” on the tenant’s faces.
Its just a garden, i realize your anxious because its new to be renting one for you.. but its just a garden… and it won’t be yours anymore while the tenant is there.
slopegirl | 13 years and 11 months ago
I don’t think you can ask tenants to water or prune for you. You can hope, but I think you can’t require it. Everyone has a different temperament about these things. Your hardy perennials trees and shrubs should be fine once they’re established. I’m sure you can add a provision to come in a few times a year to prune.
Bklnite | 13 years and 11 months ago
Why don’t you discuss it and write a short rider you can both agree to, along the lines of “tenant agrees to water and maintain plants in garden; to notify landlord when tenant will be away for more than x days and allow landlord to access thru apartment in order to maintain garden; and tenant agrees not to rip out anything in garden without landlord’s consent”
And if you agree to discuss it when there’s a question – if the tenant doesn’t know when or how you want stuff cut back, they’ll ask you and you can show them or do it yourself – you should be fine.
daveinbedstuy | 13 years and 11 months ago
And just how will you deal with it when the tenants go on vacation, or is that not allowed?
donatella | 13 years and 11 months ago
For Chrissakes, that is YOUR responsibility. Arrange to have a service come in. What, do you want them to do rain gutter maintenance and check on the boiler. The tenant is NOT going to maintain the garden.
BHS | 13 years and 11 months ago
Clear communication of responsibilities is key, but I’m not sure a lease rider is the right place for all of it. You should have a conversation with the tenants saying something very specific like “the plants need to be watered for 30 minutes with a sprinkler every day during the spring, summer, and fall unless it rains” and that the “rose bush needs to be cut back by 1/3 every late winter”. The specificity re expectations is important because people have very different ideas about what is necessary because of differences in gardening experience, interest levels, aesthetic sensibilities, etc. One person’s “English garden” is another’s unkempt yard. Once you’re on the same page, I’d put whatever they agree to in the rider in general terms, such as “tenant will water daily or as needed and will provide access for owner to prune in the early spring and fall”. But in the end, you will be relying on the tenant to keep up the garden and that may not work out perfectly–that’s one of the risks of renting the unit.
anonymous | 13 years and 11 months ago
My only recommendation would be to draft up a document with very specific responsibilities. I live in the garden apartment of a brownstone. My landlord asked me to take care of the garden, but then sent very critical emails whenever I worked with the plants (for instance when I tied up a rose bush to the fence with cotton string she said it would corrode the fence). It became clear that she really only wants me to water the garden daily. This miscommunication has made our otherwise pleasant relationship fairly tense – I don’t feel like the plants are being properly pruned and she doesn’t feel like they are being properly watered. In the end, it would have been better if we shared the costs for someone to take care of the simple garden maintence, and if we had installed a simple, automatic watering system.