If you own a rental and don't use a management company...

[randomkid]

...what do you do for a rental/lease agreement? We have always used a management company, but think we are going to try to do it ourselves this time around. Our tenants just moved out today and the next door neighbor approached my husband about renting from us. She wanted to rent it a few years ago, but couldn't get out of her lease. Her daughter and grandkids live on the same street so we think she could be a long term renter. I guess she is in a position now where she could move in.

We have never done a rental agreement ourselves and don't want to hire a lawyer as that kind of defeats the purpose of not using a management company. We want to save some money. We would likely spend more on a lawyer than on the mgmt company. If I'm wrong on that, then please correct me. I want to be sure it is a complete document, legal and binding.

Advice, please!

[happymomma]

We have a pretty generic agreement through the county. The thing is to make sure you get the right tenant. Because once they move it it is nearly impossible to kick them out. Make sure you do a credit check on the individual(s) that are moving into the place. If they have bad credit, I would not rent to them. I also do a background check on their previous places that they have rented. The current landlord is not the best because they might just want the person to move out so they would say anything.

HTH

[gatorsmom]

We searched and found a lawyer who owns her own rental properties. We asked her for a copy of the lease she uses, then we added some stuff that we wanted in there, had her review it to make sure it was legal, and that is now what we use. This cost us a few hundred dollars but that was 5 years ago and we've used the lease many times. Occasionally, we ask the lawyer if the laws have changed and do we need to update the Lease Agreement, but that's about it.

The key to a successful renter-Landlord relationship is like the pp said get the right people. ANd the only way to do that is to thoroughly check references and do criminal, credit and rental background checks. Talk to previous landlords if at all possible. If you only ask one question, make it this one, "If you had an open property, would you rent to this person again, why or why not?" PREVIOUS BEHAVIOR IS A VERY GOOD PREDICTOR OF FUTURE BEHAVIOR. If someone destroyed or damaged their previous property, they'll most likely do it to yours.

GL!

[srkaplan]

We got one from a real estate lawyer that we worked with when we purchased our house. It was a bad faxed copy, so I've just re-typed it and saved the document so that we now have it electronically. Could you just do the same with whatever you have had previously with tenants? Just type it out exactly the same & I would think you would be fine.

[ezcc]

I found a standard lease for my state on line and printed it out. I used to be in real estate so was familiar with leases and it was a thorough one. They used to sell them in office supply stores too. If you can find one you could always compare it with the one you have currently and make sure it is basically the same. If you know a realtor in your area you could also ask them to give you a blank one, I used to do that for friends.

[avd3875]

We use books from Nolo.com for all these sorts of things. We were able to use their standard form (on CD in the back of the book), and customizing it was very, very easy.

This is one of the books we've used in the past.
http://www.nolo.com/products/leases-&-rental-agreements-LEAR.html