Sometimes you can do showings and line up replacements in advance. Sometimes the tenant sabotages the showings, is too messy for showings to be worthwhile, and so on.
My leases are written to require a tenant cooperate with showings during the last 30 days. But there is cooperative and there is cooperative, the only thing it does is get advance agreement to allow access.
My TX properties require a new lease 30 days before the expiration or they have to move when the lease expires. They get a reminder and new lease to sign 45 days before and if its not back on day 30, they get a reminder of what they need to do on move out to maximize their return of deposit.
My AZ lease used to go month to month. Now it expires the way the TX one does.
Posted by GCurtis(VA) on July 11, 2007 at 09:10:55:
I am in Virginia and have spent numerous hours reading state laws trying to find out when is it too late to issue a tenant a non-renewal notice.
Basically, I have a one year written lease agreement with a tenant that is about to expire on 8-31-07 and frankly, I’ve had enough of her whining which has intensified over the last four months, not to mention her rent was late this month. I am assuming sending her a certified non-renewal notice in the mail 30 days beforehand is adequate. Also, in the notice I am not planning on providing an explanation as to why the lease is not going to be renewed to avoid any type of landlord retaliation lawsuit.
30 days is a good rule of thumb in most states. On expiration, you do not need to give a reason and its wise not to as it may give them traction in a lawsuit.
If the lease expires, many automatically become month to month, in which case any 30 day notice should be legal. You need to send it certified so you can verify that they got the notice.
You bring up a very good point. It is a good thing to have it written into the lease that it converts to a month to month after the initial lease period. If you want to offer the tenant a new lease, then you and the tenant have to right to enter into that new lease. If the tenant is one that you do not desire, you can allow the lease to expire and then remove then under the month to month agreement. In any case the expiration allows both you and the tenant an easy way out at that point. Understandably you also create the potential for a period of vacancy in your unit with this. You also can line up new applicants for the unit in advance of the lease expiration in order to be able to move quickly and minimize your losses.