How did you come up with your lease?

Question

Hi,

I am a new REI in Columbus Ohio. I am in the process of reading Managing Rentals by Brandon Turner.

How do you guys come up with your lease to present to tenants? Do you use an attorney or purchase from online legal websites? Also, what if you wanted to add addendums? Do you need to consult an attorney to add this?

I was thinking about possibly asking my realtor for a lease or using it from BiggerPockets. Would this be a good idea?

I've talked a good amount of investors and they've seemed to have used attorneys to help them write their lease agreements! Please help.

Drew Sygit · Answer

We did something similar to @David Terbeek

You should consider these issues:

1) No attorney can create a lease that will represent your business the way you want it to. So, you should be prepared to modify any lease you find and then have an attorney approve it.

2) What you thought would work yesterday, tenants will find loopholes in. So, be prepared to adjust your lease to address unpleasant scenarios you experience.

3) No one can think of everything (not even attorneys!). So, you should review every lease you can and learn from them.

Our lease started out at 10 pages and is now 26.

Remington Lyman · Answer

BiggerPockets has a list of forms that you can buy from them for cheap. They work well for Columbus, Ohio

Will Fraser · Answer

Hi @Jimmy Lieu, personally I use the BiggerPockets landlord forms for my property management.  I had an attorney look them over and said they are nearly identical to what he created, with a few small additions that he recommends.  Ultimately I think this is a sound way to go and drafting a lease from the ground up seems like needless rework.

The key things you want your lease to be are:

• compliant with your local Landlord Tenant Act rules

• Enforceable

I'd go with the simplest solution to achieving that.

Joe Splitrock · Answer

You can get a state specific lease from BiggerPockets or often your local realtors association has attorney written leases. I personally added content and had my lease attorney reviewed. You do not want to write your own lease without attorney review.

Steve Morris · Answer

Go to your local rental housing association.  They pay an atty to regularly review and update the leases for the jurisdiction.

You can buy them for a minimal amount, well worth the cost.

Jack Smith · Answer

Do NOT use the Realtor version!  There are many additional conditions and clauses you need to protect yourself that are not in it.  Start with the BP template and tweak it to your needs from there.

Jack Smith · Answer

@Jimmy Lieu

Most, if not all, Boards of Realtors have a standard purchase agreement they use and also a standard rental agreement.  You can ask a local Realtor for a copy to review.

Lynnette E. · Answer

I bought a state specific one from an on-line legal form vender.  I tweaked it with addendums for some things like no animals unless specifically approved by LL, no holes in the wall, use 3M attachments, no dishes, etc. can be placed on roof or attached to the building, etc.

Jimmy Lieu · Answer

don't use the realtor version? wat do u mean by this? thanks

How did you come up with your lease?

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