Lease Addendums: What They Are and How to Write One

The lease tenants receive when moving into a new property doesn’t have to be comprehensive. Lease addendums ensure that landlords and tenants alike can modify their core contract throughout a tenant’s time on a rental property.

What Is a Lease Addendum?

A lease addendum is an addition made to a lease between a landlord and their tenant. For a lease addendum to serve as a viable and recognized legal document, both the landlord and tenant must sign it. This requirement prevents landlords from issuing them without a tenant’s knowledge.

They come in many forms, but are all designed to elaborate on responsibilities expected of tenants, landlords, or both. Landlords can use lease addendums as stop gaps should an unexpected turn of events change how they control their property.

Tenants, it’s worth noting, cannot propose lease addendums. Instead, tenants presented with one that they’d rather not sign can negotiate the details of it with their landlord, so long as they do so without violating their existing lease. However, no tenant has to sign a lease addendum if they have their original contract in place.

Common Lease Addendums

Landlords can retain copies of potential lease addendums on hand to use should a tenant request one. Some of the most common include:

• Appliance rentals
• Direct deposit sign-ups
• Pet fees
• Maintenance
• Pet fees
• Entry by landlord
• Professional cleaning
• Inclusion of renter’s insurance
• Pest control services
• Roommate applications
• Abandonment

These documents are kept separate from a tenant’s original lease. The addendums can come with their own fees, as is often the case with pet expenses or appliance rentals. With that being said, tenants moving to a new property for the first time can reject many of these documents. While they won’t be able to take advantage of some of the amenities that may accompany them, they can keep their monthly expenses low. Tenants can even revisit these addendums at a later date.

How to Write a Lease Addendum

Lease addendums cover a myriad of topics. Landlords can keep addendum templates on hand to cover some of the most prominent inclusions a tenant may be interested in. Landlords may even individualize their templates based on ongoing conversations with interested tenants. Drafting these templates, however, will require significant forethought.

To write a lease addendum and personalize it to a tenant, landlords can:

1. Identify state and county laws that apply to a tenant’s requests
2. Elaborate on their own expectations of tenants’ behavior
3. Include consequences of violations
4. Leave room for a tenant’s personal information
5. Detail their own personal information

For a lease addendum to be valid and in effect, both the landlord and tenant have to sign the modified document. As such, landlords need to leave space for a tenant’s signature and their own before completing an addendum. 

Working with a Housing Lawyer

Interested landlords have the right to run their addendum templates past a local housing lawyer. Lawyers can ensure that the designations within it comply with state and local legislation before a tenant signs. Addendums that fall outside of these laws will be held invalid in the eyes of a local court. As such, the rights entitled to both landlords and tenants who signed the addendum will be waived, resulting in potential damages for all parties involved.

How Does a Lease Addendum Influence a Landlord and Tenant’s Relationship?

Lease addendums are designed to make life easier for landlords and tenants alike. These addendums ensure that tenants have access to a broad catalog of potential amenities. At the same time, these documents ensure that landlords have their expectations of tenants listed in writing. So tenants accused of violating their leases can refer to the expectations outlined both in the primary document and its addendums for more information about their landlord’s stance.

In short, lease addendums are protective documents. Both tenants and landlords benefit from well-written addendums and their overall versatility.

Maintaining a Positive Landlord-Tenant Relationship

Managing a tenant’s landlord addendums can get complicated. Luckily, online platforms like PayRent make organizing a tenant’s documents a little simpler. Tenants and landlords who use PayRent can access a tenant’s lease at their leisure. All parties can revisit the core lease and its addendums for more information about a tenant’s rights.

What’s more, the PayRent platform simplifies a tenant’s rent-paying process. Landlords interested in expediting the rent-paying process can learn more here.

The lease tenants receive when moving into a new property doesn’t have to be comprehensive. Lease addendums ensure that landlords and tenants alike can modify their core contract throughout a tenant’s time on a rental property.