Good news. Tenant obeyed our 30-day notice, but the place is filthy. No damage, but carpet needs to be replaced (wasn’t that great to begin with) and all walls painted.

To recap: As first-time landlords, we rented our small condo on a month-to-month basis to our nephew and his girlfriend WITHOUT a written lease. The girlfriend moved out and the nephew moved in a buddy to help pay the rent. Then the nephew moved out and his buddy didn’t. We served the remaining party with the 30-day Notice to Terminate Tenancy. Now to avoid this hassle again...

1. As we are new to the L/T arena, I am assuming we can use a “standard” lease agreement available at an office supply store?

2. Any suggestions as to additions to lease agreement that might not be standard (i.e. no smoking inside condo, no pets)?

3. We are considering getting first month’s rent and one month’s security. This area of California is an expensive place to live and rents are in the area of $1400-1500 for a 2/1. We’d prefer to get first and last plus security but $4500 is probably a lot for most renters to come up with.

4. To protect ourselves we would like to make it a six-month lease, then month-to-month for the remainder of one year. At that point we could then consider a longer lease if the tenant is decent and wishes to stay.

What am I missing? Any and all constructive advice is most appreciated.

I do not know a lot about real estate law - but as far as using the
Standard 6month lease printed form available at a stationery store -
Be wary.

Some stores sell lease forms that are over thirty years old. Even newer forms can be
Inadequate.

Your six month lease form should not be asking about marital status, race, creed, or even sex. And in certain ways the discussion of children has to be carefully entered into.

Callifornia is quite pro-active in terms of protecting tenants from discrimination of any kind. This includes whether there are minor children.

So even if you yourself are totally free from prejudice of any sort, if the form has wording that is questionable, you might be opening a whole can of worms.

You might "pretend" to be needing to become a tenant at any large well maintained apartment complexes in your area. Just pop in to the manager's office and ask if
There are units available. Explain you'll fill the rental application and lease out at home.

Often such large complexes are careful as to the wording of their applications. So that might be better than going to the stationers.

You can find several places where you can get sample leases. Try googling Sample Rental Lease California. Just add anything you want. You can check CA law using the link in the note at the top of this forum.

I would start at 1st & last and deposit. Then negotiate down if you want to.

More important is to get references and check them and do a credit check.

You might even consider using a mgmt company rather than deal with it yourself.

Where I live, you are entitled to know everything about your tenets and are allowed to run background checks on them.
I feel that if a person is looking for residency, they should be prepared to pay all the expenses involved in moving, this includes first/last/security. It has been my own experience that when these move in requirements are made, you have a trustworthy tenet that will pay their rent on time each month. A person who is less prepared and does not have the move in funds usually (in my case every single time) is late on paying rent (if they pay it at all).
You can add anything to the lease that you want - no smoking/ no pets/ late fee penalties/ terms of eviction /noise restrictions/ privacy warnings/ what ever you deem relavent...
You can have your own documents drawn up by a lawyer or property manager for little cost and doing so may benefit you in the long run when it comes to dealing with tenants.
-Kae

Ok, let me shook everyone on this one, normally I have people avoid attorneys like plauge if possible.

But standard lease forms are OK, but often not state specific or specific for things in your home.

Go to an attorney get a good specific one made up, will cost you more but you will never regret it ( personal opinon) That way every proper state law is included, the attorney can explain rules for where to put the deposit money and if your state requires you to pay interest on it to the tenant ( some states do)

So my advice get him to make you up a lease just for you. Then in the future you copy it over and use it.

Next I will note on carpet, I take all carpet out of my rentals and use hardwood ( or some type of wood) flooring. A little more cost going in, but next time, you merely rent a sander, and put a new finish down yourself, a lot cheaper than carpet any day.