overall success of your rental property management business. It can also be the most time-consuming, but trust me when I say you’ll want to spend the time to make sure every possible area is addressed. It’s not enough to have any old lease; you need a rock-solid, iron- clad lease that protects you and your property from any potential issues with tenants. Even if you’ve done your due diligence in every other matter, and even if you think you trust your tenant, a rock-solid lease is essential. Get your real estate attorney to create your lease, or edit the template you want to use to make sure everything they feel is needed is covered and addressed.
Location, Location, Location
You’ve likely heard this phrase in real estate before, but I mean it differently here. When drawing up a lease, you must consider your location — where you live. Every area, county, municipality, and state might have different rules and regulations regarding leases, so do your research. Many newbies to the rental property business mistakenly assume they can just look up a lease template or a lease example online and use that as the basis for their own lease. Or worse, they’ll just plain-out copy it and use it as the lease! Big mistake. First, the lease will either be too generic and not cover all the areas you need it to cover, or it will be too specific to a certain time and place that won’t necessarily apply to the year and where you live. Second, typing “free lease for rental property” or something similar on Google and then using it could get you into heaps of trouble legally because it’s not tailored to your location. Third, if you copy a contract, it could open you up to copyright infringement charges. Fourth, there’s no guarantee it’s a good lease — whoever wrote it might’ve done a bad job to the point that it could even be thrown out if a court case occurred.
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