Monthly basis lease

[Julia J]

Hi,

Does anybody have tenants who rent from month to month?

I might need to do this with a tenant whose lease expired and he still wants to stay for a while but doesn't know exactly how long. He is a good tenant and I'm fine with him staying for how long he needs. He said he would give me one month notice.

Should we sign a lease contract each month?

Thanks

[Michael Rossi]

Unless you're renting to VERY HIGH END TENANTS, it is not to your advantage to have the tenants sign a lease longer than one month. With a month-to-month lease, you can get rid of the tenant if you don't like what's going on. A longer lease won't force the tenant to stay longer than a month anyway. If a tenant wants to leave - they'll leave. What are you going to do, sue them? It's nearly impossible to enforce the lease on most tenants because you can't collect a judgment from them (you can't get blood from a turnip. On the other hand, the tenant can enforce the lease on you, because you have something to lose. If you violate the lease, the tenant can and will sue you and they CAN COLLECT. A longer lease ONLY BENEFITS THE TENANT.

One additional consideration is that the government is pumping TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS of imaginary money into the economy. Our country is in so much trouble that other countries are no longer willing to buy our debt. The FED is buying our debt, which is nothing more than a giant ponzi scheme. The result is likely to be RUN AWAY INFLATION! You don't want to be trapped in a year long lease at a set rent if hyper-inflation occurs. A month to month lease will allow you to adjust rents to keep up with the hyper-inflation!