Lease Renewal or Month-to-month

[Ryan Hudec]

Hi Everyone,

This is my first time posting here, so thanks in advance for your reply. I own a rental unit (condo) and the lease is going to expire at the end of July. The tenant is great -- I don't hear from him, rent paid on time, etc. What's the recommended procedure from here in regard to renewing his lease or letting it go month-to-month. Some have told me to just let it keep going month-to-month as to not even bring up the topic of him moving out. I'm wary of that because as of now, the lease cycle ends in July and it's a lot easier to rent in the summer should he move out. How and when do you present the option for renewal? What have you found works best?

Thanks!

[Charles Carillo]

@Ryan Hudec

You can handle the lease renewal in a couple different ways from my experience. I would figure out what you would like to raise the rent to for the renewal (3%-5% normally). You can present this to the tenant by US mail with a simple letter stating that their lease is up on X and upon a 12 month lease renewal the new monthly rent will be Y. Once they contact you back, you can schedule a time to sign the new lease. If they do not want to sign a 12 month lease, you can write a shorter lease with normally a higher rent than the 12 month one or you can write a new lease for just month to month (higher rent than the 12 month lease) or do nothing and leave it as is with a month to month at the current rent. As you said, it is easier to rent this during the summer so take this into consideration when writing a new lease that is not 12 months long and explain to the tenant why it is this much higher. Also, offering free carpet cleaning or something similar is a great perk for tenants that renew for 12 months.