feedback - Landlord Forum thread

feedback by anonymous (IL) on November 4, 2009 @17:36

I have a tenant(6 mo lease, auto-revert to m2m after that signed 2003) who wanted me to change the locks since his sister(additional tenant but not the lease holder) moved out. He didn't want to sign a new lease so I told him we'd do an addendum to the lease removing her, & stated in it that if he wanted to move anyone else in they'd have to fill out app, meet our qualifications, & that his rent MAY increase. He got a little aggravated over that, but I told him without his signature releasing her, I couldn't change the locks because she had the legal right to reside there according to the lease. He finally did sign it after about 10 min. He then proceeded to say you can't ever raise my rent again, my lease says XXX amt. I told him it's normal procedure to raise rent once a yr cause property taxes, insurance & water bills increase yearly & that a 30 day written notice was all that was required if I wanted to raise his rent or if I wanted him to move. What really got his goat was when I offered to print the law out re: rent increases & notices to vacates, so he could read it for himself. He's not a bad tenant but he has a PITA bout about once a year.

Anyone have any further suggestions or maybe handling the situation a different way? I'm second guessing myself.

But then I got to thinking I have 6 tenants whose original leases are 5-10 years old. Alot of the new clauses aren't in it(2 page lease then is now 4 pages long) Being they're all long timers, I'd waive the 6 mo lease & make it m2m from here on out. Would it be advisable to have all the long timers do new leases?

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Re: feedback by Ultimate M-Bone on November 4, 2009 @17:44

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Just so you know, a lease is not a month to month rental agreement. So if you are doing month to month agreements, you should call it that. A lease is a fixed term agreement, ie., 12 months.

It sounds like you handled yourself professionaly with that one. Basically, keep your tenants in check, remind them they are not the boss and are not permitted to call any shots or make demands. After all they should be at your mercy with a month to month rental, all it takes is a 30 day notice "I don't like you, move".

As for the other tenants, when you are ready to increase their rent, that would be a good time to ruffle their feathers with a new rental agreement. Until then, leave them in peace as long as they are being good.

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Re: feedback by OK-LL on November 4, 2009 @18:04	[ Reply ]
Rather than sign new 6 month leases with the old-timers, just give them 30-day notice that the existing agreement terms will be modified to the following [insert the new clauses you want here]. Personally, I'm not sure you have covered yourself by having one tenant sign away rights of another, but we covered that when you first posted the situation some days ago.

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