The term ‘residential lease agreement’ applies to the legally binding arrangement signed between a landlord and his tenant and includes all the conditions for the residence rental of a house or apartment.

This contract is also known as a rental agreement for an apartment or a lease for a landlord-tenant. It is usually signed at the beginning of the term of the lease and remains in operation until the end date specified in the agreement. The lease agreement template for residential lease agreement is available at CocoSign.

Cocosign is an e-sign solution that allows its clients to sign agreements and access different contracts. It’s being used by billions of consumers in 190+ countries around the world. It is well-reputed and has also been highlighted by world-renowned brands such as Forbes, Business influencer, and the New York Times.

To prevent misinterpretation or misunderstanding about who has access to the property and the conditions of access, residential lease agreements set out in writing the most relevant provisions between a tenant and the landlord.

Things You Can’t Include In Your Residential Lease Agreement

Go and visit CocoSign for getting detailed residential lease agreements. There are a lot of things you can’t include in your Residential Lease Agreement. A few of these are mentioned here;

1. Requiring the occupant to be responsible for rental property maintenance

You should not include it in your Residential Contract, as enticing as this provision may be. As the owner, you are responsible for your property’s repairs and general upkeep, just as you would be if you were a normal homeowner.

Of course, it’s a different story if the occupant breaks something. Since your tenants had a fight or a party and broke up the apartment, you are not liable for paying to fix a hole in the wall or a broken window. The tenant can, however, choose to have the repair costs taken out of their security deposit.

To ensure all is in working order, it may be a good idea to perform daily inspections of your property and the rental units. For example, you don’t want a leaky faucet to turn into anything more sinister, like a burst pipe that could cause significant (and expensive) damage to water and mold.

Only make sure that before entering their unit, you do not fail to provide your tenants with a Notice to Enter. HUD takes the right of a tenant to privacy very seriously.

2. To ask the occupant to renounce their right to privacy

This is an error made by certain landlords that can have expensive implications. Although it might not be something that you can include in your rental agreement, you must bear in mind that you should not access a rental suite unannounced as a landlord.

You can’t just walk in with your plumbing equipment, even though your tenant has texted you saying that their toilet isn’t flushing.

Before entering the house, the minimum period of notice you have to give a tenant varies between states, but the consensus is 24 hours.

In more urgent situations, though, (like if the light fixtures of your tenant are sparking), your tenant will possibly waive the 24-hour notice limit. The most significant thing is that with verbal (over the phone or in-person) or written (probably by text message) confirmation, the tenant must make that decision.

3. Making the Security Deposit of the Tenant non-refundable

The maximum dollar amount landlords may request for security deposits varies from state to state. The dollar sum is limited by twenty-six states to a maximum of one to three-and-a-half months’ rent, and 24 states have no cap at all. That said, at the end of the lease agreement, every state needs security deposits to be returned to tenants.

The terms of return, of course, have limitations too. A security deposit is intended to compensate for any harm that the tenant does.

You will be expected to provide the tenant with an itemized list (with exact dollar amounts) that justifies your deductions from their return if you are dipping into the security deposit to cover such harm.

4. Not granting all tenants the same rights

All tenants on your property must be treated fairly, which means that you can not ban the rights of those tenants that other tenants have. These privileges include access to parking, property-wide laundry, fitness rooms, or pools, but are not limited.

Under the federal Fair Housing Act and the Fair Housing Amendment Acts, restricting or prohibiting such tenants from using these facilities could open you up to a discrimination suit.

5. Asking the tenant to dispense with the right to sue you

In a lease contract, you can not have this stipulation in any manner, shape, or form and have it to be a legal clause. If you breach any property or landlord-tenant rule, even if they have signed an agreement saying they wouldn’t, the tenant has the right to sue you for damages.

Being a law-abiding landlord is the best protection for preventing a complaint from your tenants.

It’s usually a good idea to get your residential lease agreement checked by a lawyer if you are dealing with something unique, such as maybe you are having trouble differentiating the property laws in your state from another.

Conclusion

Property and landlord-tenant laws can often be a little tricky. Some landlords and property managers do not establish their residential lease agreements with absolute legality because they either do not recognize the law or are illegitimate deliberately.

You should know that even if, after you have inserted an unconstitutional clause in the contract, your tenant signs a lease agreement, the clause does not become lawfully true.