How to Write a Home Rental Contract

Video Transcript

"In this segment, I'm going to talk to you about some of the very key points that you need to consider when you write your lease. This is a New York state residential lease agreement that I actually have in place with one of my tenants. You'll see up here, I actually have the name of the tenant, his full legal name. Very important to have the legal name of your tenant or tenants right there. I have the address of the property, the legal address of that property along with the term. This is a one year lease and I've specified it out, right here, the beginning date of the lease, and the ending date of the lease. I also have the rental amount. How much per month I will be charging my tenant and when that actual rent is due. I talk about other things in here such as the damage deposit, the security deposit, as it's called, that's also specified in the lease. The lease is very long. It talks about what happens if your tenant does different things to the unit. We get into what happens if your tenant were to vacate the unit early, basically not umm, complete the lease, who is responsible for attorney fees if that should happen, we talk about whether or not your tenant is allowed to paint the unit, if they can bring pets into the unit, if they can smoke in the unit, etcetera. The very end of your lease basically has the signature. This is where your tenant is going to sign off on the lease and this is where you are going to sign off on the lease. If you want, you can take your lease and actually have it notarized. I've done that in the past with several of my tenants. This one is not notarized, by the way, and then you would take that and you would give your tenant a copy, you would keep a copy and that becomes your binding lease. But again, those are the very high level, important things to have in your lease agreement with your tenant."