What's the most important clauses in your rental agreement?

[Brandon Holley]

Hello BP,

I wanted to reach out to the experts and ask, What's the most important clauses, statements, sentences, and/or paragraphs in your rental agreements/contracts?

I'm currently building our rental contract in house before sending it to our lawyer.

I'd like to put together a fairly comprehensive list for others to reference. Thanks for your help! 

Here's an example

For payments be sure to have each payment satisfy any/all fees and penalties first, then apply to current rent

[JD Martin]

They're all really important or they wouldn't be in there. If I had to pick and choose, these would be most important:

1. Tenant's waiving of right to 30 days eviction notice (my state allows tenants to voluntarily waive this right in the lease, and anyone who doesn't sign my lease doesn't rent). That waiver gets them gone almost overnight if they don't pay, with the sheriff's help.

2. Amount of total rent, how it breaks down per month, amount of deposit, how it is to be delivered to me.

3. Names and ages of all people living in the unit, and no others.

4. Names, breed, weight and description of all pets living in the unit, and no others.

5. Property-specific addendum information (i.e. smoking only on balcony, allowable storage use of basement, etc).

6. Description of who is responsible for what, when, where, how and why.

7. Term of the lease and instructions for carry-over (month to month).