Favorite lease contract provisions

[Steven Anderson]

I was wondering what are some of your favorite provisions you have included in your contract that aren't typical provisions? Something that helps me is I have a provision in my lease that describes the paint brand, texture, and color of every room for future reference. Anyone else care to share?

[Fred Heller]

@Steven Anderson  Funny you mention that, because this is something that has come up recently.

I'm a property manager and I use the standard TAR residential lease. That lease says nothing about pest infestation.

I recently had an otherwise ideal tenant contact me about bed bugs in their rental. They expected the landlord to pay for the extermination (which ain't cheap) even though one of their kids brought the bed bugs into the house.

Since the TAR lease is silent on this issue I will be adding the following clause to all future leases:

"With the exception of wood destroying insects, tenant will be responsible for the extermination of any pests including bed bugs."