Property Management Agreement (image: c-rem.com)
Are you in searching for a valid Rental Lease Agreement for your California home? Are you going to develop your own Rental Lease Agreement?
But before you reach for site like RocketLawyer, LegalZoom, and NoloPress offer some ideas on what needs to be included in your rental lease agreement you should recognize that a a similar contract developed by California Association of Realtors has more than 55 legal clauses!
Another consideration for you is to make certain that these generic contracts from these sites might not survive a challenge in California courts. However, if you opted to use forms from these sources pay special attention to the Top 6 items to include in your Rental Lease Agreement to avoid huge costs down the road in case you end up with non-cooperative tenants:
1) Rent: The terms of this section should cover acceptable payment methods, late fee application. Offering online payments would be a good consideration to create predictable rent collection.
2) Sublease: Your Rental Lease Agreement should prohibit your tenant from subleasing your home to other tenants without explicit authorization by you and your property management company.
3) Pets: Pet clause of your Rental Lease Agreement should describe if you will permit any pets. If you ask for Pet Deposit, then you will have to return the fee to your tenant if there is no pet damage. Pet Fee is another option which you can if you want a non-refundable fee to treat the property after your tenants has moved out.
4) Mediation: In this section your tenant will agree to use mediation to resolve any dispute before using California courts which would be cost prohibitive for both parties.
5) Disclosures: If you have an older home build between 1950-1970s there is serious potential that Lead based paint was used without your knowledge. Same goes for any asbestos that could have been used in your attic for insulation.
6) Security Deposit: Security deposits are the source of most tenant and owner disputes specially in cases where the condition of the property is not well documented prior to the tenants occupying the property. That’s why we document every rooms condition prior to the occupancy and have the tenants initial each page prior to taking possession of the property.
Your can review our post about the 55 items that are covered in the California Rental Lease Agreement that we utilize for the properties that we manage in San Jose, Los Gatos and Campbell. But feel free to Contact Us if you have any question about what else you will need to include in your Rental Lease Agreement to be safe.
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