Rental Lease Agreements--
If You Don't Include the Details, It May Cost You
Working as a
dedicated property manager since 2002, I have come across many different lease
agreements between landlords and tenants. Naturally some have been better than others. Many landlords have gone online to search for a 'standard lease
agreement' thinking this is all they need. For most part they are right. Every
'standard lease agreement' will have a start and end date, the monthly rental
rate and a penalty fee if rent is late, and the requirement to leave the
property clean and free of any trash.
But as the saying
goes, 'The devil is in the details.' It is what is not said that can come back to hurt
you. As the president of a property management company, I have a fiduciary
responsibility to protect our landlords against any event or circumstance that
will end up costing our owners. We have
created a lease that is fair to both landlord and tenant but is not ambiguous
on the items that might otherwise cost the landlord in the end.
For example,
consider what a lease may say about the end of term when the tenants move out.
A basic lease will state that when the tenants vacate a property they will
leave it in 'broom clean condition'. This
may sound reasonable, but it actually leaves too much unsaid and is actually
quite ambiguous. What about the appliances, kitchens and baths? They need to be
clean too. What about carpeting? A lease that requires the tenants to have the
carpets professionally cleaned and to provide a paid receipt at the end of the
lease can save the landlord a lot of money. Tenants should not be permitted to leave a property with a chirping
smoke alarm, burnt-out lightbulbs and dirty air filters, unless the lease
specifies that the owner is responsible to purchase these items. New smoke alarm batteries, lightbulbs and air filters
may not be terribly expensive, but the time and energy to get the batteries,
the lightbulbs and the air filters and then install them is costly for anyone
having lots of other things to do.
In the case of
detached properties, a statement requiring the tenants to have all gutters and
fireplaces cleaned out should not be omitted.
As for pets, it
is not enough to just include an extra pet security deposit. Our leases include an entire addendum on pets whenever
a pet will be present.
Every lease
should warrant the property as free of any pest infestation (ants, cockroaches,
other bugs, etc.) After 30 days, if any pests are discovered, it becomes the tenants'
responsibility to resolve the issue, as it is presumed that they are the ones
who caused them to appear. This is fair
and reasonable when it is spelled out in the signed lease, making clear who is
responsible.
Landlords take
caution. Not all rental leases are
equal. The lease we use is the 'standard
lease' of our association of realtors, which we then modify with our own
proprietary 5-page addendum. In this way
we seek to provide owners with legal protections and assurances against every
circumstance we have experienced or could possibly predict.
Email:DStein@SilverRiverPM.com