Lease Agreement/House Rules

[Raymond Hill]

Hello BP Family,

I wanted to see if there is a template I can use to set up lease agreements/house rules for a 3 family property.

[Anthony Thompson]

@Raymond Hill this one was mentioned on a local investor group a month or two back and seems relatively decent. I particularly like that it has the required lead paint stuff built-in.

I had to hunt around for a bit to find the Bigger Pockets landlord forms including the leases but eventually did find them (to save you the trouble).

If you are a Realtor in RI, or are working with one, you should have (or be able to get) access to the RI Association of Realtors (RIAR) lease also, which is likely pretty even-handed for landlords and tenants.

Between those three sources you should be able to find (or cobble together) something you like.

Whatever you come up with, you should have an attorney review it of course. And one could also ask, why not just ask your attorney which lease s/he uses?

One idea I've always liked is to establish a relationship with an attorney who specializes in evictions and use their lease. After all, someday (sooner or later) an eviction will probably have to be done and that lease will be part of all the documents presented in the case.

Sooner or later you will need to do an eviction, which means sooner or later you'll need to contact an eviction attorney. So I think it's an idea worth considering, to contact them about what lease they recommend (or at least have them look over your proposed lease) before you have an eviction underway.

(I'm including "house rules" in the same category as "lease" because most times there's language in the lease saying that the attached house rules are incorporated into, and made a part thereof, to the lease, so they are effectively an extension of the lease. That may be so common because it might be necessary to do it that way in case you needed to evict because of a violation of the house rules. As with all of the above, at some point you'll need to run it by an attorney so you could consider doing it proactively before starting an eviction.)