Investor · Tampa, FL · Member since 2015 · 293 posts · 175 votes
Hi BP!
I currently have a house rented with 2 tenants, jointly on the lease. It ends June 24th and Tenant A wants to stay and renew and has a new person he would like to put on the lease in place of Tenant B. Normally this wouldn't be an issue but Tenant B is being very difficult to deal with as far as signing roommate release forms, agreement to vacate etc. I'm nervous he won't leave at lease expiration.
My question is: If I sign a renewal lease with Tenant A and his new person effective the day after the old lease expires and Tenant B isn't moved/won't move out what do I need to do...remove belongings as lease has expired, start an eviction process and tell Tenant A's new resident that he just has to wait...Thoughts?
Send them both a notice to vacate or whatever it is called in your area stating that you're not renewing the lease. Tenant B might end up moving out before that. I had the same thing happen before. If he does wait until the end of lease to move out, then your remaining tenant is just gonna have to pretend to move or something and then move back in....of course after their friend applies and you do all the needed checks on this person.
That does seem tricky... Is it viable to put it on the market and have others look at the property? it may be simpler to replace them both... Or maybe this will be the best way to scare Tenant B to know you mean business.
Out of curiosity, if the lease ends in June why would you need any release forms? Why not just end that lease agreement and execute a new one with Tenant A & "X"? That way there wouldn't be any paperwork on Tenant B just a notice to not renew. This may resolve the legal issues and move a lot of the problems onto Tenant A & B aka "friends" but, remove you from the equation.
I might try and be a little tricky if you are really nervous. Depending on how you have their rents and deposits setup...
If you have something like $1200/ month rent. $1200 deposit.
I'd explain to tenant A and his new tenant you need to collect a separate deposit from them so you can release the previous due to different tenants.
You would also collect the first months rent from the new set of tenants.
Overall this would make you cash heavy and put a huge "personal responsibility on Tenant A" to help make this transition occur because he would have possibly $600-$1200 coming back to him depending on who covered the deposit and last months rent.
I'll try and follow up with you late in June to find out how this turns out. Probably worrying for nothing.