Break the Cycle of Month to Month Leases

Control your Lease Expirations and Renewals Workflow

Does the idea of lease expirations fill you with panic? Do you put off dealing with it until the deadline every single time? If so, this blog is for you. The truth is, it’s easy to get ahead of your lease expirations and renewals. Make them a key metric that you track, and start your workflows early.

Don’t get Behind in the First Place

You should be starting your lease expiration process 90 days before the lease expires. This gives you time to plan for relisting the property or renewing your lease. If the tenant renews their lease, you just have to update the terms of the existing lease and continue with your property management workflow -simple!

If the tenant decides to move out, you’ll go to your relist cycle. You’ll have to get ready to market the property, perform the move-out inspection (and charge the tenant for any damage that you’ll be fixing). Then you’ll rekey and make the property ready for a new tenant. Starting your lease expirations 90 days out will give you plenty of time to manage the entire process and prevent you from falling behind, but you’ll still need to track them.

Develop a Tracking Tool

There are many steps to lease expirations, so your team will need to know at what stage in the process they’ll need to act. If the tenant isn’t renewing, marketing will need to know to start listing. You’ll also need to know when to perform a move-out inspection. It doesn’t matter what method you use to track this process, but you should make sure everyone knows who’s responsible for each phase. Investing in the right technology is key, as you don’t want to have to enter the same data into multiple systems if you don’t have to.

Tracking your process isn’t just helpful for lease expirations. It’s important when you’re signing new owners, or collecting rent from tenants. You’ll need to track ongoing maintenance tickets as well. If you need help getting the right tools for tracking, as well as your other property management business solutions, consider getting help from a property management consulting company.

Month to Month Leases

If you end up with a holdover tenant, you should hold fast to the conditions in the lease. If you allow month to month, but require an increase, enforce it. Month to Month leases should also be a key metric that you consistently track. You should ensure the increased rent is being collected, and you’ll need to know if it becomes necessary to evict the tenant.

If you allow month-to-month tenants, keep in mind that you’ll generally have less time to enter the relist phase, so it’s critical that everyone is accountable for their part. Make sure you also have written, clear policies and procedures to help with your workflows.

Getting your lease expirations and renewal workflows started at the 90-day mark will help keep you on track for the whole process. Your team should be tracking the last action taken at every step in the workflow, so everyone is accountable. The sooner your tenant is notified of their upcoming lease expiration, the sooner they can decide whether to renew or move out and you’ll have fewer month-to-month leases to manage.

 Have questions? Geekly Media offers full-service consulting services for property management companies.