Is your lease agreement a dinosaur?
One of the top New Year resolutions to make: I will update my lease agreements.
Whenever housing providers or their agents seek legal advice, we want to ascertain a few critical things off the bat.
One, what jurisdictional rules is the property subject to, if any? When was the property built, and when was the occupancy permit issued? And thirdly, what is spelled out in the lease agreement?
We are aware, however, that some in our community are using stale, outdated, generic leases that have been downloaded from the Internet. These may have been allowable 15 years ago but the law has become so complicated and balkanized, that it is no longer acceptable to pull a notice off of sell-help legal sites like NOLO.
When we first began our legal careers, we had to contend with rules relating to San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland. Since then, rent and eviction protections have proliferated throughout the Bay Area, with each locale having its specialized notice requirements. One of our followers quipped that when renting out a unit, there should be a bookshelf containing all of the requisite paperwork for the incoming tenant to view.
This resolution goes hand in hand with one of our other resolutions to join an industry trade group that is dedicated to serving the area where your investment property is located They have intimate knowledge of the nuances in their respective locales and have ironclad, templated lease agreements prepared.
Having a lease prepared and signed with a new tenant is one thing, but if the tenant is already implanted, Bornstein Law can assist in changing the terms of an existing tenancy.