Landlord Question and Answer Forum

Hi everyone. This site has been immensely useful to me, as an unplanned landlord. I've been lucky enough to find a couple tenants through referrals from friends, and feel that the property will be taken care of. After talking to the two tenants, one of them (we'll call him 'A') is content with a one-year lease, while the other ('B') would like to have the option to exit the lease after six months, as he is starting a new job, and is not sure if it will be a job he will stay at, or if he will be pursuing another. I explained to them (in more words) that I'm okay with B leaving, as long as A is okay with covering all of the rent or possibly finding a new tenant for the remainder of the lease. In any case, I added the following section to the lease, and was wondering if it sounded like of reasonable description of what I described. "Tenant B has requested a six month lease agreement, and will be permitted to remove himself from the lease at the end of the sixth month, but must provide a minimum of fifteen days notice of his intent to do so. Absent such notice, Tenant B will remain as part of the lease until the end of the twelfth month. Departure from this timetable will be considered a breach of this lease. Tenant A agrees to remain as part of the lease for its entire length. If Tenant B chooses to remove himself from the lease, Tenant A is solely responsible for securing a replacement tenant, if he choses to do so. Unless and until a replacement tenant is secured, Tenant A is solely responsible for rent payments." I'm sure there are plenty of landlords on here that can offer a great deal of experience and insight to a new one, and I greatly appreciate any input anyone has to offer.

I actually had this post separated into paragraphs and formatted neatly, but the site decided to jumble everything into one block. Gah...

Posted by James S, PA on Wednesday, October 16, 2013