New Lease or Lease Amendment?

[Kyle Meyers]

I am changing the payment frequency and due dates for a tenant at their request and I am trying to determine if I should use a lease amendment or a new lease. They are currently month to month.

I think the advantage of using a whole new lease is that I have a new standard lease agreement I started using with new tenants, so this tenant would then have the same terms as everyone else going forward. I am not sure if there is a drawback to starting a new lease though, since it seems like that may equate, legally, to them having "moved out" and then move back in.

Any advice would be appreciated. I plan to discuss this with my attorney on Monday.

[Kyle Meyers]

I think I have found the best of both worlds. I am drafting an agreement to restate and amend the lease so the agreement with this tenant will be the same as my other tenants and there will be no loss of rights from ending the tenancy and starting a new one.

Here is the link to some information I found on this setup:

http://www.meislik.com/articles/be_careful_new_lease_old_tenant/