Landlord Rental Forms???

Question

Hey BP!

I’m a new landlord in Massachusetts, particularly New Bedford. As I get acclimated to the business I’m trying to solidify all my systems and processes.

I’m curious what other landlords are doing for their rental forms. Most importantly, the lease. There are tons of sites that offer forms but I want to get experienced opinions first. Should I reach out to an attorney to help draft one? Also, are most landlord using leases or TAW agreements (tenant at will) in my market?

Side note: What is everyone doing for screening? Outsourcing using something like rent prep? Or just doing it all in house?

I only have 3 units so I realize I can handle most of my dilemmas on my own, but like many of you, my goal is to streamline everything now so I can “seamlessly” acquire more.

Any insight is greatly appreciated! I’d also love to connect with more investors in my area; New Bedford, Fall River, Fairhaven, Dartmouth, Taunton.

Cheers!

Robert P. · Answer

Hi @Aaron Araujo,

I actually used someone's rental agreement they shared on here and then tweaked the heck out of it to adapt to my preferences and type of home,etc. Basically what I use for each tenant moving in is the following:

• At Will Agreement (I don't do leases)
• Property rules Agreement (maintenance requests, what NOT to do, no smoking, etc.)
• Pet Addendum (if they have pets, and most good tenants in NB will have a pet)
• Statement of Condition (I used the general MA one)
• Lead Paint disclosure (print out packet, also have them sign paper and provide any documents if your home is in any way lead free/safe)

For screening, it's important to be consistent and set guidelines up front. This is what I do:

1. Post unit on CL, Zillow, Hotpads and Trulia

2. When someone contacts me, I ask every single person the same questions, which are:

3. I then decide if I want to invite them to my open house based on their responses. If someone missed even one question, they are disqualified. I will typically get about 200+ inquires in the matter of about a week.

4. I then have the open house (where I tend to invite roughly 30 people). Maybe 15 show up and possibly only 5-6 apply. However, given I am pre-screening someone from even coming, the ones who do come and apply are all usually someone I would rent to. It's a great process. Leave emotions out of it and don't let someone sway you with manipulative words/promises.

5. Once I select someone, I contact prior landlords, current managers, find them on FB (sometimes their FB names are not their real names, but you can find it). I really go to the extreme to find every single little thing I can about this person. It's a little creepy to be honest, BUT so far, it has found me nothing but absolutely fantastic tenants!

Let me know if you have more questions!

Robert P. · Answer

@Francois Martin Happy to help!

I certainly do background checks. What I do is take all of the applications I have and go through them one by one. If someone meets all of my requirements and has great past landlord/work/person references, I then move on to the background check.

I go through TransUnion SmartMove and pay for it myself (it's around $30 I believe). I do not charge any application fee (I am pretty sure it is illegal in MA, although I see many landlords still charging). The background check is worth it because this looks at past evictions (I also have a website linked directly to my county's court systems), criminal history, and their credit score and all the bills/loans they have.

For pets, I would prefer no pets, but I certainly allow them. In fact, all of my tenants so far have had an animal. This is something I am very strict on however. I prefer dogs over cats (Cat urine is a pain to get rid of). I do not allow more than one pet and I mostly prefer medium to large sized animals. Nobody wants multiple chihuahua's running around and barking all day. In my couple years being a landlord, I have found that all of the good tenants have a pet, so I had to break my original rule of no pets and just make sure I am placing the right people in the apartments.

Aaron Araujo · Answer

Thanks for all the replies everyone! I'm definitely going to follow up on all of your recommendations.

@Mike Koprowski This book seems like the resource I'm looking for. I'll do some digging around and see if I can find the accompanying CD. I got to a monthly REIA in my area, but a Mass Landlords one sounds like something I need on my calendar. I've poked around their site, so it's reassuring to hear someone else approval.

Nathan Gesner · Answer

I can't speak to the quality of their product but BiggerPockets allegedly sells a Landlord forms package for $99. I would expect it to be a good product. Unfortunately, I have searched high and low and can't find it anywhere on their site so I can't tell you much about it.

You can also check out:

EZ Landlord Forms some are free, most are paid. You can print off all their forms for $30. Editable copies cost more.

American Apartment Owners Association free or small fee per form.

NOLO I started out by purchasing their book which includes a lot of forms you can use. This is my favorite resource and highly recommended for anyone starting out because it covers all aspects of Landlording and includes all the state-specific laws.

Do a Google search for "landlord forms" and you'll find even more options.

Ann Bellamy · Answer

Please don't try to use generic forms from the internet for Massachusetts.  One small mistake and you

lose your case, get slammed with triple the rent in damages, and have to start all over.  And evictions can take years if you screw up.   With all due respect to those trying to help, please don't listen to out of state recommendations when it comes to MA.  No matter who you buy a form from, have a MA landlord attorney review it.

Mike McCarthy · Answer

BP has a book "Managing Rental Properties" which includes about 30 different forms that are downloadable.  I would highly recommend this book for anyone just getting into rentals.

https://www.biggerpockets.com/store/managing-prope...

I have heard that MA (and CA) are probably the most tenant-friendly states, so you definitely want to be sure to dot your i's and such with the local laws... but that's also the case with all states.  They each have their own peculiarities.

Bettina F. · Answer

I stole mine.  We looked a several different multifamily properties before we purchased.   We received copies of the  leases during the due diligence portion of the negotiations. It is amazing what you learn by reading leases.  One lease was far and above the best.  I took this lease, modified it for our situation, and entered it on our business computer so we have a fully editable document.  Last year, I finally had an attorney review it.  It passedreview and he even said he was going to steal some of my clauses.

Mike Koprowski · Answer

Hey @Aaron Araujo,

Got to be careful with this one, we have a tricky state when it comes to landlord/tenant laws and forms.  You need to make sure everything is MA specific.  Ive recommended H. John Fisher's book "Property Management Manual for Massachusetts Rental Owners" very highly in the past, its been an invaluable resource for me.

The book is full of straight forward information about how you need to run a rental property in MA with no fluff.   The best part was that the book came with a CD that had legal forms for everything you could possibly need in our state.  Unfortunately after reading some of the recent Amazon reviews it seems that it doesn't doesn't come with the CD anymore...  I'm not sure what that's all about but I'd imagine that even without the CD the book would be a great resource for you too.

I'll also echo what @Steve Bracero said about the Mass Landlords group. You should also check out their website and see where the closest meeting is to you.  I personally go to 2 different monthly meetings, there's lots of benefit to membership and its great for networking and education too.

Feel free to reach out with any other question, I'm glad to help where I can.

-Mike

Francois Martin · Answer

@Robert P. Excellent post. Thank you for sharing your method with great details.  I am just curious to know if you do background checks and if yes, do you charge an application fee? Also if you could clarify your pet policy . You said that most good tenants have pets but it seems like you turn them down if they have a pet.

Thank you

Steve Bracero · Answer

@Aaron Araujo

Look at mass landlords - they have forms for about 99$ a year-

Landlord Rental Forms???

Most Popular Reply