Inherited Tenant and a New lease

[Joshua Austin]

Hello All,

I bought my first rental property back in September with an inherited tenant in it. The lease ends in January but the tenant wants to sign a new lease. The tenant is a section 8 tenant and we all ready have approval to increase the rent from the current rent starting 01FEB. My question is should I do a full new lease or just an addendum for a lease extensions changing the lease dates and rent amount. Any advice Is appreciated 

[Greg Scott]

First, it is fairly normal to renew a resident this far in advance.  We send out renewal notices at least 60 days before the end of a lease and they can walk in the next day and sign up for the next year.

Whether or not you want to sign a new lease or extend the old one is up to you. If you do not like the provisions of the original lease and want to substantially change how you run your property, I would get a new lease.  For example, if you wanted to now implement a no-pet policy, assuming the resident doesn't already have a pet, now would be the time to implement that.