Know when to NOT Renew a Tenant's Lease * Lease Renewals are NOT just for INCREASES

I've been working on my lease renewal spreadsheet for 2012. With fixed term leases, I task residents with advising ME in February if they wish to renew their lease for another 12 months.

While many do not do this, for the last 3 weeks, residents have been e-mailing and sticking notes with their rent checks that they want to RENEW their leases.

Although I try to warn residents of the issues effecting non-renewal of their lease * 2 pay or quit notices in 12 months * excessive maintenance requests (dripping faucets that do not drip when the plumber checks) * these issues are often over-looked as reasons AFTER the fact and residents think that once they are IN their lease, they get to STAY there until they want to leave.

Fortunately, by tasking them with notifying me and providing WARNINGS in my original lease resident handbook as to how to AVOID the issue of NONrenewal of their lease, there are no Fair Housing issues with my process.

I also use this rental renewal process to INCREASE rents and change or tweak my lease terms. This year I will be warning area residents on our county water service that there will be a $25 charge if the owners are notified that their water bill has gone delinquent. This is a process which is tedious to deal with as there is already a warning on their water bill that is often ignored.

Lease renewal time is a GREAT time to increase rents to JUST under market, tweak terms and conditions AND REaliegn lease end dates to be in the PRIME rental season.

PRO property managers RENEW with CONFIDENCE!