Landlord Question and Answer Forum

If an existing tenant requests to drop wife's name from lease due to divorce, as a Landlord , what is the correct procedure to do it? If the tenant's income doesn't change, to Landlord, what kind of potential risk will be due to this change ? Does Landlord have to agree to make change on lease? Thanks ! Connie

If wife (tenant) is on previous lease and request to remove due to divorce is not something you have to automatically do simply on a request. I would simply offer the option to cancel the lease per the current lease agreement paragraph handling a cancelation (hopefully you have one written in there) with the stipulation of the tenant that is planning on staying (he, I'm assuming is planning on staying, right?) sign a complete NEW Lease Agreement (and if this a good tenant) to sign for another FULL YEAR. This satisifies his request plus gives you additional months it is rented without the hassle of looking for another renter when/if/you/him were not to renew. Make sense? To cover your butt on a complete walk-away for example (after cancelation goes into effect) do what Title Companies do and have both the Cancelation Notice and the New Lease Agreement signed at the same time with the New Lease Agreement starting the very next day after the cancelation i.e. if the (say 30 day) cancelation is March 31, the New Lease Agreement would start on April 1st however the signing of the two would take place before both on say February 28th.

Posted by Management S, on Thursday, December 2, 2010

Yes just sign a whole NEW lease for another term, ideally 12 months and update any amounts for rent and deposits. Do a walk through and inspection and check for any damage. You wouldn't want the tenant saying "Oh my ex made those damages and she is responsible". Then just put a clause that the new lease supersedes all previous lease, so once they sign the new lease it sucures the new and voids the old at the exact same time.

Posted by Gregory M, TX on Sunday, February 27, 2011