Tenant won't respond - nearing end of lease

[Alan Bosca]

Hi -

I have a lease ending mid Dec & would like to get my place back on the market if the tenant is leaving.

I notified him that the lease was ending and wanted to know his plans weeks ago - he didn't respond for several weeks, then said he wanted to stay until Feb.  I sent him a lease extension until Feb, & have not heard a word about it, despite a few requests to sign it.

I'd prefer to lock in Feb & look for a new tenant then, but as of now, I have nothing signed and extremely poor, intermittent communication, so I'm thinking I'll have to just put it back on the market.

Any advice on how best to protect myself from a messy, no notice curveball?  Again, I'd prefer to honor his request to stay until Feb, but the utter lack of communication makes me think the best approach would be to just get it on the market assuming he's going to blow it off & I'll be stuck flatfooted in mid Dec at the end of the lease.

Thanks for any input!