Can I make amendment to the lease that I inherited from previous landlord?

General Landlording & Rental Properties
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Can I make amendment to the lease that I inherited from previous landlord?

Sara T.
Member since 2021 · 11 posts · 9 votes

I just got a rental property that comes with a tenant who is now on month-to-month lease. The previous landlord only collected half month rent as deposit, and I would like to increase the deposit to standard one-month. I'm thinking if I ask the tenant to pay the other half, I'll probably need to make an amendment to the lease to reflect that. But since the lease was signed between the previous landlord and the tenant, can I still make the amendment to the same lease? How would you go about that? 

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  • Bill B.
    Investor · Las Vegas, NV · Member since 2013 · 8k+ posts · 10k+ votes
    1y

    You can’t change an existing lease. Until the lease ends and then the legal notice time in your market has passed. But you don’t need a new lease to make a security deposit amendment, that’s just a one page amendment. There’s probably a legal notice period for that too, based on your market. 

    If the lease is a do it yourself and/or more than 5 years old you probably want a new one anyway. If you don’t know the legal notice requirements for your market make sure you figure all that out before you do anything. 

    Get a modern lease with any missing points (pets, guests, maintenance, landscaping, etc) and the new security deposit. And if you like the current tenant. Maybe you change it to a 12 month lease at $x or MTM at $x plus more money. (MTM leases should cost more than yearly leases.)

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  • Sara T.
    OP
    Member since 2021 · 11 posts · 9 votes
    1y

    That's good to know. Thank you for the advice Bill!

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  • Kim Meredith HamptonBusiness Member
    Real Estate Broker · St Petersburg · Member since 2014 · 2k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    1y

    Sara,

    You can’t amend the previous lease, but you certainly can add an addendum if you and the tenant agree on a change. Depending on your states statutes and because they are on a month to month, give the proper notification that xxxx change will take affect starting 30,60,90 days from now. 

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