Storage Rental Agreement (Lease: Fill & Download for Free

Most standard rental contracts include:1. Rental property address and details. This is especially important when you have one building with multiple units so there’s no confusion.2. Details on any furnishings, parking space, storage areas, or other extras that come with the rental property. Will the unit be furnished or unfurnished? Will a refrigerator be included? Etc. You can see how disagreements here could lead to problems.3. Names of all tenants. Every adult who lives in the rental unit, including both members of a married or unmarried couple, should be named as tenants and sign the lease or rental agreement. This makes each tenant legally responsible for all terms, including the full amount of the rent and the proper use of the property.4. Limits on occupancy. Your agreement should clearly specify that the rental unit is the residence of only the tenants who have signed the lease and their minor children. This guarantees your right to determine who lives in your property -- ideally, people whom you have screened and approved -- and to limit the number of occupants. The value of this clause is that it gives you grounds to evict a tenant who moves in a friend or relative, or sublets the unit, without your permission.5. Term of the tenancy. Every rental document should state whether it is a rental agreement or a fixed-term lease. Rental agreements usually run from month-to-month and self-renew unless terminated by the landlord or tenant. Leases, on the other hand, typically last a year. Your choice will depend on how long you want the tenant to stay and how much flexibility you want in your arrangement.6. Deposits and fees. Expect to see details on the dollar amount of a security deposit, cleaning deposit, or last month’s rent BEFORE the tenant can move in. Are deposits refundable or nonrefundable?7. Rent. Your lease or rental agreement should specify the amount of rent, when it is due (typically, the first of the month), and how it's to be paid, such as by mail to your office. To avoid confusion and head off disputes with tenants, spell out details such as:acceptable payment methods (such as personal check only)whether late fees will be due if rent is not paid on time, the amount of the fee, and whether there's any grace period, andany charges if a rent check bounces.8. Repairs and maintenance. Your best defense against rent-withholding hassles and other problems (especially over security deposits) is to clearly set out your and the tenant's responsibilities for repair and maintenance in your lease or rental agreement.9. Entry to rental property. To avoid tenant claims of illegal entry or violation of privacy rights, your lease or rental agreement should clarify your legal right of access to the property -- for example, to make repairs -- and state how much advance notice you will provide the tenant before entering.10. Restrictions on tenant illegal activity. To avoid trouble among your tenants, prevent property damage, and limit your exposure to lawsuits from residents and neighbors, you should include an explicit lease or rental agreement clause prohibiting disruptive behavior, such as excessive noise, and illegal activity, such as drug dealing. Is cannibus on the premises allowed or prohibited? In some state it’s legal but for federal purposes it is currently illegal.11. Pets. If you do not allow pets, be sure your lease or rental agreement is clear on the subject. If you do allow pets, you should identify any special restrictions, such as a limit on the size, type, or number of pets or a requirement that the tenant will keep the yard free of all animal waste.12. Utilities. The landlord should state who pays for what utilities. Normally, landlords pay for garbage and sometimes for water, if there is a yard. Tenants usually pay for other services, such as Internet, gas, and electricity.13. Extended absences. Some leases and rental agreements require a tenant to notify the landlord in advance if you will be away from the premises for a certain number of consecutive days (often seven or more). Such clauses may give the landlord the right to enter the rental unit during your absence to main­tain the property as necessary and to inspect for damage and needed repairs. You’ll most often see this type of clause if you live in a cold-weather place where, in case of extremely cold temperatures, landlords want to drain the pipes to guard against breakage.14. Limits on tenant behavior. Most form leases and rental agreements contain a clause forbidding tenants from using the premises or adjacent areas, such as the sidewalk in front of the building, in such a way as to violate any law or ordinance, including laws prohibiting the use, possession, or sale of illegal drugs. These clauses also prohibit tenants from intentionally damaging the property or creating a nuisance by annoying or disturbing other tenants or nearby residents—for example, by continuously making loud noise. Leases and rental agreements may prohibit smoking, in individual units as well as in common areas.15. Restrictions on use of the property. Landlords may throw in all kinds of language limiting tenant use of the rental property and who may stay there. These may be minor (for example, no waterbeds, plants on wood floors, or bikes in the hallway) or quite annoying. These may be in a separate set of rules and regulations or individual clauses. Basically, landlords can set any kind of restriction they want—as long as it’s not discriminatory or retaliatory or otherwise violates your state law.16. No home businesses. Landlords may prohibit tenants from running a business from your home, by including a clause specifying that the premises are “for residential purposes only.” The concern here is generally about increased traffic and liability exposure if one of your customers or business associates is hurt on the premises. Obviously, working at home on your computer is not likely to bother your landlord, and may not even be noticed.
 If you want to run a day care operation in your rented home, your landlord may not be able to flatly prohibit it. Laws in some states, including California and New York, are designed to encourage family-run day care. Landlords in these states may limit the number of children, however, and any business you run must comply with state fire and health regulations regarding minimum size of the facility and fire exits.17. No assignments or sublets without landlord permission. Most careful landlords will not let tenants turn their rental over to another tenant (called “assignment”), let someone live there for a limited time while you’re away (called a “sublet”), or let you rent an extra bedroom to another occupant, with you as the “landlord” (also called a sublet), without their written consent. 
Lease clauses often specifically prohibit tenants from renting rooms on Airbnb or similar short-term rental services.18. Attorney fees and court costs in a lawsuit. Many leases and rental agreements specify who will pay the costs of a lawsuit if you go to court over the meaning or implementation of a part of your rental agreement or lease—for example, a dispute about rent or security deposits. These clauses do not apply to legal disputes that arise independently of the lease or rental agreement—for example, lawsuits over alleged discrimination. A common and evenhanded attorney fees clause will explicitly require the losing side in a landlord-tenant dispute concerning the lease or rental agreement—whether it’s the landlord or the tenant—to pay attorney fees and court costs (filing fees, service of process charges, deposition costs, and so on) of the winning party. Watch out for clauses that make only the losing tenant pay for the owner’s lawyer’s fees. In several states, these unfair arrangements will be interpreted to run both ways, even though the landlord didn’t intend it that way (in other words, if you win, the landlord has to pay your costs).19. Grounds for termination of tenancy. You’ll often see a general clause stating that any violation of the lease or rental agreement by you, or by your guests, is grounds for terminating the tenancy according to the procedures established by state or local laws. Rules for terminating a tenancy differ depending on whether or not you sign a lease or rental agreement, and vary by state (and, in some cases, by city, if the property is under some form of rent control).20. Other Restrictions. Be sure your lease or rental agreement complies with all relevant laws including rent control ordinances, health and safety codes, occupancy rules, and antidiscrimination laws. State laws are especially key, setting security deposit limits, notice requirements for entering rental property, tenants' rights to sublet or bring in additional roommates, rules for changing or ending a tenancy, and specific disclosure requirements such as past flooding in the rental unit.These are just a few of the most common clauses usually found in lease agreements. Work with a local property manager in your state to develop a lease that is appropriate to your property and tenants. They are worth their weight in gold when it comes to finding reliable tenants, screening and leasing. And their fee should be tax-deductible to an active property owner while your personal time spent in these activities is not.

If you received an “eviction notice,” then you have been ordered by a judge in a court of law to vacate the property. It's too late now, it's on your record, and the sheriff is coming to escort you off the property, forcibly, if necessary, followed by all your stuff being thrown into a moving van and hauled off to a storage unit somewhere, (if you're lucky,) or, if you're in a landlord friendly state, your stuff will end up on the sidewalk or front yard with a FREE sign on it.The only way this can get better for you is if the notice came from your landlord and not a judge, in which case the landlord used the word eviction incorrectly, or you used the word eviction to describe the notice that you got from the landlord.If you have not yet been evicted, pull out your lease and read it from start to finish. Know and understand everything in it. Don't have a lease? How about a rental agreement? You must have some document that you and the landlord signed.*¹ Determine the expiration of your lease term. If you have not violated any terms of your lease, including non and late payment of rent, depending upon which state you live in and the length of your tenancy, you are entitled to either a 30 day or 60 day notice to vacate. Day number 30 or day number 60, whichever is applicable to your state and tenancy, cannot be any earlier than the last day of your lease term. If you are living with a month to month rental agreement, the 30 or 60 day notice can be posted at any time.However, if you are in violation of any terms of the lease or rental agreement, or if you're in arrears with your account, then the landlord can initiate a process to see you vacate. It can vary from state to state or landlord to landlord, but a typical scenario would be for the landlord to post a three day notice to pay rent or quit, (leave, vacate,) or a three day notice to cure (fix, correct) the violation or quit. If you haven't paid, cured, or quit at the end of day three, the landlord will then go to the court house to start the eviction process. You'll be notified of the hearing date. Bring all your evidence, present your case, as will your landlord. The judge will review the evidence and render his decision. Landlords almost always win, so if yours does, the judge will instruct law enforcement to schedule a visit from the local constable to perform the actions previously noted.This eviction process could also be in effect if you did not vacate after a 30 or 60 notice.If you sign a year lease and the landlord decides he wants to sell after two months, you don’t have to move. You have your contract. He may offer you a cash for keys deal. Move out in 60 days and he'll pay you $XXXX.xx, or move out in 30 days and he'll pay you $XXXX.xx (×2) Accepting this deal is simply amending your lease to the satisfaction of both of you. Every landlord will offer a different deal, it's up to you to accept it, reject it, or negotiate it.If the building does sell, make sure the old owner transfers your security deposit to the new owner. It wouldn't be the first time rental property gets sold, a tenant moves out, and the new owner says, what deposit?*¹ No written signed contract, lease, or rental agreement at all? Don't worry, you still have rights.Whatever you do, your first step is to find your nearest tenant advocacy agency. They will have better answers for you since I have no idea what state you're in, the laws of that state, or all the other details and documents you have that I don't. Also…I am not a lawyer or a RE professional and this answer is not professional advice. My experience comes from ten years working in the family rental business and thirty-five years of renting in five different states.

I have a couple of houses I rent in California and Nevada, houses I bought for my residence and decided to rent instead of selling when I relocated. I have had it take six months to get one particularly resourceful criminal out of my house. This particular criminal - let’s call her “Trish” - because that is her name - had been living in the house with her boyfriend, but they broke up and he was moving on, so she asked if she could rent the house in his stead. He had been renting from me for five years, and had been a great tenant, so I didn’t imagine it would be a problem… she had been living there for a couple of years, off and on.So she already had possession of the house when we met at the house, filled in the lease agreement, and everyone signed it. It was the middle of the month, and the rent was paid to the end of the month by my previous tenant, so she said she’d mail a check to reach us by the first and we left it at that.The first month’s rent - which was to include a deposit - bounced, and I couldn’t reach Trish… she didn’t respond to my phone calls or email. After nearly three weeks she called and apologized and said she had been traveling, but she’d include all three checks in her next month’s payment. The second month she claimed she had sent the check for both months and the deposit “a few days ago… just give it a week and if it’s not there I’ll cancel the checks and send new ones.” Long story short - we never received even one payment from her.Sooooo - she’d been in the house for two weeks on her ex’s dime, then for a month and a half on mine - and now it was nearly Christmas and I was in New York for the holidays - clear across the country. By the time I got home she had been living on my dime for well over two months, and her excuses - and my patience - had run thin. I don’t make money on my rentals - I just use the rent money to pay the mortgage - so this wasn’t working for me.I live 4.5 hours - with traffic - from the rental, so I hired a local paralegal to fill out and post a three-day notice to pay rent or quit… then waited three days. The same paralegal then got the earliest court date - three weeks out. And the paralegal - who was great - served her.On Court Day Number One, I drove the 4.5 hours to get to court and was sent to mediation. After several hours of back and forth in two separate rooms, the mediator told us there was no way to settle the case. She claimed to the mediator that I owed her $10,000 for work she had done to the house, and she felt the house now should belong to her, and she shouldn’t have to pay rent. We went into the courtroom and the mediator told the judge he would have to hear the case… but now, of course, it’s nearly quitting time, so the judge gave us a new court date.Court Date Number Two - two weeks later. And another nine hours (round trip) of driving. When our case was called, Trish claimed she had worked on the property and had spent $10,000 on my house, cleaning, fixing things, painting - basically doing work that she was not authorized to do. This was particularly ironic, since she had been living in the house for several months with her boyfriend before he moved out, so any “clean up” work she did was just cleaning up after herself and her live-in. The judge asked her for receipts, but she “didn’t bring them to court.” The judge told her to bring her receipts the next time and set a new hearing for two weeks out.Court Date Number Three: At the next hearing there was a new judge. The tenant called the court and said she was unable to attend as her son was ill. The judge canceled the hearing and set another hearing for the next week. My husband and I drove back home. Another day out of work, another day in the car in traffic between Chico, CA and the Bay Area.Court Date Number Four: The next week the original judge is back. When he asked Trish for her receipts she pulled out a paper grocery bag full of what appeared to be trash and dumped it out on the table. My husband picked up one receipt - it’s for a kid’s meal at McDonalds. She claimed the meal receipts were for her paying friends who worked on the house with food - to save me money! The judge told her she had to 1) type up her receipts and 2) Get them to me a minimum of 24 hours before the next hearing. He set another trial date, three weeks out, as the court was backlogged.It was now nearly three months since I posted the three-days notice on her door, and she’s been living rent-free in my house for nearly six months . . . I have taken the day off work and driven nine hours to court and back four times. And we haven’t even begun to have an entire hearing.Court Date Number Five: At the next hearing we are to begin at 1 PM, after lunch. Whew! A much better leaving time for that 4.5 hour drive! We were there early, but Trish was nowhere to be seen. The judge called roll and after finishing with the roll call tells us our case will not be heard that day, as Trish had called in that morning with the same excuse - her son was sick. He set another hearing for the next week at 10 AM. That means I’ll have to leave home around 5 AM to guarantee I’ll be there in time for the hearing.Court Date Number Six: At the next hearing my husband (what a trooper!) and I were there at 9:30 - no Trish. I still have not received any receipts nor list of receipts from her, despite the judge ordering her to provide them. The judge called roll, and she was not there. He told us Trish had called the courthouse again to say her son was sick and she had to pick him up from school, and asked if I would agree to postpone the hearing to another day. He said she would find a sitter and come in the afternoon if the hearing couldn’t be postponed.I explained that this was the sixth time I’d driven 4.5 hours to come to court, and that she had never paid ANY rent at all, ever, as her first rent check had bounced, along with her deposit.The judge said he understood, and he would postpone the hearing until 4 PM, at which time he would hear the case whether she was there or not. My husband took me for a leisurely lunch, then we came back to court.She was a no-show, so the judge heard my side of the story and then rendered a judgment of around $11K in my favor for back rent and damages. When we got out of court it was 4:45 PM, so we were pressed to try to get through the line at the clerk’s window so we could avoid having to make that drive again to get the paperwork filed for the judge’s signature.While we stood in line at the clerk’s window, who should appear but Trish! Dressed to the nines, like a lawyer, ahead of us in line for another clerk. She was pretending to be an attorney who had come by to pick up the judgment for her “client.”My husband ran back to the courtroom and told the Bailiff she was at the courthouse at the clerk’s window. The bailiff went into chambers and told the judge. The judge was so irritated he stayed late to sign our judgment that day so we could move forward without waiting the several days it generally takes to get the paperwork filed and the judgment signed.Although we got the judgement that same day (Thursday was eviction-hearings-day at that particular courthouse), we could not have her evicted until the Wednesday two full weeks after the judgment was issued - which really meant one day shy of three weeks. That was 1) to give her time to file an appeal if she was going to, and 2) Evictions only happen on Wednesday. So you see, even by the choosing of days to hear evictions and days to serve evictions, landlords are at a disadvantage in California, adding nearly another month to the half a year of free rent she had already stolen.We hired the local sheriff to serve the eviction notice, and she had, if memory serves, 48 hours once the notice was served before the sheriff came back to actually evict her. It was literally MONTHS after the first three-day notice to quit was tacked to the front door.At 11 PM the night before she was to be evicted she called me, crying, begging to be given another two weeks so she could have time to move all her stuff out. “What will my children do without their toys?!”Of course, this was just a ploy to start the clock all over again. I refused, and advised her to gather anything important to her and her children that night, as the Sheriff had told us he would be there first thing the next day to evict her, forcibly if need be.And the plot thickens. My husband showed up at 9 AM to be there when the Sheriff arrived. She had packed NOTHING, but left with a friend and her purse. She called me later that day and asked when she could come back to pack up and move the entire 3-bedroom house of her belongings. My husband agreed to drive the 9 hours once again, and meet her the following Saturday at 9 AM. I told her he would be there from 9 AM to 8 PM and advised that she have some help to move, since she had a lot of heavy furniture, large screen TVs, etc., and NOTHING had been packed… the house was full.When he showed up that Saturday - having left the house at 4:30 AM to arrive by 9 - she was a no-show. The driveway was gated with a heavy metal gate, which the Sheriff had locked, so we knew she hadn’t been there to get her things, and the house was still full. My hubby started packing the small things up, to move to storage, and was there until noon, when he went to get something for lunch. Trish called while he was at lunch and said she was at the house - where was he? He left his lunch and drove back to the house, but - again - she wasn’t there. He texted her to say he would stay until 5 PM, and then he was going back home, after hiring a moving company to move her things to storage. He informed her if that happened she would have to pay for the mover and the storage to get her belongings back. Then he started looking online for a local moving and storage place.Then around 1 PM it got really crazy. . . a woman - the “friend” who had been with her when the sheriff came to evict Trish - came to the house and asked if she could get HER things. My husband said sure, and she went in with a suitcase and packed up some clothes and makeup. He went in the house with her to make sure she didn’t take Trish’s things - which we were responsible for at that point.While packing she told him Trish had hired her as a nanny. Trish had promised her $1,400/month in pay and free room and board just two weeks prior. The poor woman had quit her job and vacated the room she had been renting, and was now out of work and homeless. Trish had completely fooled her, ruined her life, and boy was she mad.She pulled some papers out of a pile in the kitchen and handed them to my hubby. They were the rental papers for all the furniture, the two 70″ TVs, and the computer in the kitchen. Trish had scammed the rental company and never made a payment. They had been trying to repossess their furniture and electronics for months, but she kept the gate at the top of the driveway locked so they couldn’t get in.My husband called them, explained the situation, and they were there within 15 minutes… in a huge truck, with two big guys up front. They backed up to the house and had all the furniture/etc… in the truck in about a half an hour. They were just that good.At 2 PM, just as they were finishing up - guess who pulled into the driveway! Yep! It was Trish - in a little BMW (which we later discovered had been “borrowed” from a repair shop by a repairman she was dating. The car had been brought in for servicing, and she had talked the guy into letting her drive it, “until the owner came to pick it up.” The repairman was fired and arrested for auto theft. But I digress (truth - stranger than fiction…).Trish was apoplectic. Her “nanny” was equally furious. The two women started screaming at each other, then Trish started screaming at my husband - how dare he give HER belongings away!You might notice this was a pattern for her - she had told the mediator and the judge the house should be hers because she cared about it more than I did - And then one of the guys in the truck called the police, because, hey! this wasn’t Jerry Springer enough already!The cops knew exactly who she was, as she had had not one but TWO bench warrants out for her arrest, since she hadn’t shown up for a DUI hearing on two occasions after being released on her own recognizance at her first hearing.The police parked in the opening in the gate so no car could pull out. When she saw them she went running back inside the house and locked the door. My husband gave one of the policeman the key and they went in and brought her out in cuffs … put her in their patrol car, and off to the pokey she went, hi ho, hi ho.Leaving us with a house full of clothing, toys, a lot of legal paperwork, a fridge full of food, and a lot of garbage.The cops promised to bring her back to get her car when she was released, so my husband gave them the combination to the lock on the gate so they could let her in and get her car out. Sadly, when she got out a couple of days later they couldn’t drive her back to get her car, because her license had been suspended. So she came back on her own and broke the expensive heavy metal gate by prying at it with a crowbar until the hinges broke off. If only the rental company had thought of that!Once she was booked and made bail, and she had broken our gate to pick up the stolen Beemer, she disappeared. Her kids had been given back to their fathers while she was in jail, and we’ve been unable to find her since. We have a judgment of around 12K now - with interest - but it’s not collectible. There is still a bench warrant out for her arrest. She abandoned her belongings and we disposed of them a couple of months later after putting the requisite ads in the local paper. The only thing of value left in the house had been a generator, but someone contacted us to get it back, as it turned out she had stolen it, too.She had painted several rooms in my house BLACK, so I had to pay someone to repaint. And a welder to fix the gate - not as good as new, but it was functional.And the kicker? I found out about a month later that she had put a mechanic’s lien on my house for 10K! I had to have a lawyer deal with that.I know landlords are pretty universally despised, but I’ve never taken advantage of any renter. Although I’ve been taken advantage of more than once.And the house? My first, my favorite, and the one I thought I would retire to? It burned down in the Paradise Camp Wildfire in November 2018, less than a year after getting rid of Trish. The town is pretty much gone. The water is poisoned, and there is no electricity, so there will probably be no rebuilding it within my lifetime.But - look at the bright side! I guess I won’t have any more renter problems . . .My kitchen, after remodeling, shortly before Trish moved in. . .My son - a self-proclaimed “Balloonatic” - in our garden behind the creek. The cat - a wandering wild cat tamed by my son when it was a kitten - was taken in by an elderly neighbor. I never knew her name, but we used to pick apricots for her every summer for years, and we would visit her - and our cat - every month or so, just to keep company. I’ve been unable to locate her since the fire, and have no idea if she (or our cat) made it out or not. I try not to think about that.What was left of my house when allowed to come back to the property a couple of months after the Paradise Camp Fire. Look at the dead tree forming a “V” just above the two burnt-out center cars… The above photo of my young son was taken just behind that tree.