Simple Lease Agreement: Fill & Download for Free

(this answer responds to the concept that after renting a property for years, the rental should be ‘gifted’ to the renter) I have read the answers so far, and wanted to offer my two cents. I have owned rental property for 35 years. Some of my tenants have renewed their lease five or six times, some have been in my rental a few years then move on. Why would anyone think that they would own my house that they have leased? Taxes and upkeep are annual expenses that I, as the owner, pay. Every rental that I have ever purchased has appreciated in value, as that is the purpose of a business investment. Of course, I buy exclusively in the south, mostly Texas and Florida, and property values have skyrocketed.My selling the house had nothing to do with my desire to ‘reclaim’ the house for living; actually, its none of my renter’s business why I am selling. I have honored the lease agreement, and before the end of the agreement(three months) I gave them notice of my intention. Why a renter would expect to continue to rent a home ‘forever’ is beyond me. Deciding to take a property off the market has nothing to do with humane treatment; this is a business decision, pure and simple.Leasing a property is a business. One poster mentioned that landlords need to treat renters as ‘humans, assuming that landlords are not humane? I do not understand that logic. I treated my renters as humans, I honored the terms of the lease, and they did as well. Whenever something was broken, it was fixed immediately. Periodically new paint and updated windows and doors were added. None of my renters have complained to me, or the local tenants counsel, that they have been abused or neglected. While renting is a business, one can and should treat the renters humanely, but allowing them to dictate when and if you sell our property is not their business.

Have you ever been cheated on? Have you ever cheated?Yes, not only I, but our entire family! My parents, my siblngs and all their spouses, all of us were cheated.Whenever we think about that person our blood boils. But we became helpless in the hands of law.So this is how we have been cheated:In 1971-72 our father constructed a house in Visakhapatnam. Because our father did not like to take loan for anything, he and my mother lived a simple life and saved money for their (our) dream house.From drawing the plan to supervise the work of labourers, everything was done by my father himself! being a perfectionist, he did not compromise on any thing.He exhausted all his earned leave for constructing this house.My parents had many dreams of how they would live happily in their own house after my father’s retirement; how they will develop a small garden in small front yard and many more small dreams...The house was build in two portions, each with two bedroomsMy parents decided that until my father’s retirement they would rent both the portions and after my father’s retirement, only back portion would be rented and front portion would be occupied by my parents.Everything went on well until one fateful day my father had decided to give the front portion on a lease to “Kores India Ltd”.Though it was a lease to the company, all negotiations went on personal level.It was rented to a person Narayan Rao. The lease was for the purpose of ‘residence cum office’.As far as I remember he gave it on lease for one year in 1978-79.My father’s retirement month was August 1985. So my father decided to give it on lease until his retirement time.My father clearly told Narayan Rao that he had to vacate the house before his retirement. He agreed for that.So after one year, the lease was again renewed and extended for one more year.This had continued until (approximately) one year prior to my father’s retirement.In 1984, my father refused to extend the lease further as it would end 3-4 months after my father’s retirement.But Narayan Rao literally begged our father to extend the lease for one more year (lease period cannot be a fraction of a year) because his children’s education will get spoiled if they change the house in the middle of the academic year.He promised our father that he will vacate the house in April’1985, so that our parents would have sufficient time for doing any modifications to the house.My father agreed to that in good faith.In April-May 1985 our father came to Visakhapatnam to see that narayana Rao vacates the house.Then Narayana Rao said coolly that vacating the house is not in his hands. Since my father had agreement with “Kores India Ltd” he better take up the matter with the company itself.Until then he was the one who was paying the rent and he was the one who signed on the lease agreements on behalf of the company.My father contacted the company. They said that since my father has another house (back portion), legally he cannot force them to vacate the house. They said they were not going to vacate even after the lease period and my father should extend the lease with revised rent.By then we all came to know that Narayana Rao was aware of all these things previously.Because there was no other option, my father decided to go legally. So he filed a petition in the district court that the company should vacate the house.The court proceedings went on for nearly eight years. During these eight years period, they paid the rent at old rate, because new lease agreement was not made with revised rate. This was a huge financial loss for our parents.In between my mother was diagnosed with cancer. There were periodical chemotherapies. She breathed her last breath in January’89, dreaming until her last day that one day they will shift to the front portion and she would enjoy her dream house.Even in between all the mental agony, my father did not lose his mental strength.At the end eight or eight years, court gave its judgement.The court said “Since Mr. Sastry has filed the petition few months before the expiry of the last lease, his petition is void”(In other words it is not illegal if he does not extend the lease period and ask the tenants to vacate after lease expired, but since he filed the petition before expiry of the last lease it is void)My father had again filed a new petition.The court proceedings went on for many years.By 1998, my father became very tired of all these things. His health also started to deteriorate. His worry was that what would happen to the court case after him.So he decided to sell the house and distribute the money to all his children.But because there is a court case, nobody was ready to purchase the house.The house was in Dwarakanagar (in the fourth street towards right when going from diamond park towards Sankara Matham).It was in center of the city where the land rates in Visakhapatnam are highest.In 1998, the land value itself was around one crore(Ten million) rupees for that land. But because of the court case, our father had to sell the house (the land to be precise) at 25% the value.(The person who purchased had agreed to purchase it along with the court case)This is another huge financial loss!So all the hard earned money and all the efforts in constructing the house went into thrash with just one wrong step.Just for believing one person.....Our father breathed his last breath in 2003.After my retirement in 2010, whenever we went to Dwaraka Nagar we would go to that street and see that house.The house was completely dismantled. Tears would fill our eyes when we saw the house in that state.The scene of our father standing in the scorching heat and supervising the construction would appear before our eyes....The weak face (due to chemotherapy) of our mother would appear before our eyes...A couple years ago when we saw the site, there was a multi story building.So what life lesson one can learn from this whole episode?1. Don’t trust people blindly2. It is better not to give your house on lease to companies.3. It is still better to construct the house when you actually want to live in that house.Second part of the question: “Have you ever cheated?” NO I HAVE NEVER CHEATED ANYBODY.This was our house. Now it is all dismantled and new apartments are constructed there.

On my third jury trial, I realized I had been completely snookered when the plaintiff’s lawyer began his closing argument. It was a simple case. I was defending a store, which was part of a large national chain. The store had only been opened for a few months, and the contractor had failed to re-set the timers properly after the power had been cut off for a repair. Accordingly, because the the lights started clicking off early, the lot, which was located near a salt marsh in Atlantic City, became pitch black when the lights kicked off. The store management had called the landlord who called the contractor to get it fixed and they waited three days before coming to the store and re-setting the timers. In this case, the lights went out when the customer was in the store; she walked out, tripped over a parking block in the darkness, and banged up her face, including a very minor fracture of her nose. The plaintiff sued the store, the landlord, and the contractor. The Plaintiff’s demand was $10,000.Our defense was easy. We didn’t cut the power, we couldn’t reset the timers, only the landlord or contractor could, and we contacted the landlord on the first night when we noticed the problem. Oh, and the Plaintiff could have asked for assistance and we would have sent someone to escort her to her car.During discovery for over a year, the plaintiff’s lawyer acted very friendly and unassuming. Everything was cooperative. He was completely unaggressive, and unless we were in court, he dressed like a kid forced to find some random stuff in his dad’s closet to attend a last minute funeral. He took very short depositions, was completely friendly to my witnesses, and he seemed completely disinterested in the case against the store, and more focused on the case against the contractor.So, I had already won my first two jury trials and thought I was a real stud. During this trial, the plaintiff’s lawyer really seemed like he botched the cross examination of the contractor and landlord’s representatives, so I had to more aggressively get them to admit that they cut the power off, screwed up the timers, and delayed getting it fixed. I mean, I went to town, cross examined them with the phone messages, their policies, and basically got them to admit that they caused the problem and delayed getting it done.His client, a 60 year old lady, said that when she came into the store, the parking lot was well lit, and when she came out, it was very dark so she waited a few minutes to see if anybody from the store was going to help her, thought she could see her car, but tripped over the parking blocks.He put my manager on the stand. He got the manager to admit that the lights went out three nights in a row. He asked him if the lights went out the first night, and he admitted that they did. He asked them if he was able to get the lights back on the first night, and he said “no.” Then he asked what they did, and he said that he got the employees to grab flashlights and escort the customers to their car. He asked whether anybody got hurt, and the manager said, “no.” And the manager said, he called and left a message with the landlord that first night, telling him that the lights had gone out a few hours early, Then, the plaintiff’s lawyer asked the manager what happened the second night, and the manager said that the same thing happened also that night; the lights went out early, he got the employees to get the flashlights out, and then escorted the customers to their cars, nobody got hurt. The manager said that he called the landlord that night as well, saying that the lights went out again, and the timers needed to be reset.Then, the plaintiff’s lawyer asked the manager what happened the third night – the night when the plaintiff fell. The manager said that he assumed that the lights had been fixed earlier because he was told by some employees that there were trucks on the lot earlier that day. But the lights went out again. So this time the manager went to his office, made several calls to the landlord at various numbers, until he got the contractor’s number directly from the landlord, and then he did the same thing until he got the actual contractor and gave him an earful telling him that he needed to get to the store that evening and fix the lights once and for all. Then, after receiving assurances that the contractor would be there that evening, the manager finally hung up, and that’s when he heard someone had fallen in the lot. The plaintiff’s lawyer asked the manager whether he told the employees to grab the flashlights and escort the customers before he went into his office to make the calls, and the manager said, “no, he was too pissed off that it happened again, and wanted to make sure he got it fixed for good this time.” As a 27 year old hot shot kid, I thought he did well and made a good impression.So, I figure, the jury is going to be pissed off that the contractor never came out and feel bad for the poor store manager who did the right thing calling and letting the proper people know of the problem of the lights. After all, he was just as much a victim of the contractor’s incompetence as the plaintiff.I made my closing first and explained that the landlord and contractor were legally responsible for the parking lot and the lights, and technically, it wasn’t even the store’s responsibility under the lease agreement. I explained that many parking lots don’t even have parking lot lights, and everybody still has to look out for themselves. She certainly could have asked for an escort even if nobody went up there to volunteer.In this state, New Jersey, the plaintiff’s lawyer closes last. During his closing, the plaintiff’s lawyer got up and told the “bear story.” He said that I reminded him of the camper who went on a camping trip with his two friends. And, the campers heard a noise and realized that there was a grizzly bear outside the tent coming right for the three. He said that I started putting on my shoes, and one of the campers said, “are you crazy, you can’t outrun a bear!” And I turned to them, and said, “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you two!” He explained that I had been playing the blame game the whole trial just trying to let the other two (landlord and contractor) hang out to dry. My manager chose to open a store with broken lights the third night, and knew what he had to do if the lights went out, just get some flashlights out and help the customers to the car. When he did that the first two nights, nobody got hurt. He said, my manager had all night and day to yell at anybody he wanted on the phone after his customers got to their cars safely. He said that his client had never heard of the landlord or the contractor before this trial. She went shopping at the store and figured the manager would make sure it was safe when she need to go home. He said his client was a 60 year old lady, and the only person she really cared to make herself pretty for was herself, her husband, and her friends at the library where she volunteered. She said that she noticed her nose was a little crooked and there was a bit of a scar around her eye. He said that even he didn’t really see it, but it made her self conscious and she thought about it every time she looked in the mirror.It was at this point that I realized I was completely screwed. The jury went out, deliberated 3 hours and came back with a $150,000 verdict, 15 times what the plaintiff asked for, and found the store 90% responsible and the landlord and contractor 5% a piece.Suffice to say, I learned more from that first loss than the first two I won, or any number of the other cases I won. The plaintiff’s lawyer had a very simple plan from the very beginning. He played to my own young overestimation of my abilities. And I stepped right in the trap. When I got back to the office, I called a more senior local lawyer to find out more about the plaintiff’s lawyer, he laughed and said that the plaintiff's lawyer was one of the best lawyers in the state. I was so arrogant, I never even bothered to check him out. That was about 23 years ago. Now, I try and be the unassuming guy who has a plan.For more background; the case went to trial largely because the store, landlord, and contractor were each blaming each other, and my client (the store) was demanding defense fees and indemnity under the lease agreement. The landlord’s insurer claimed that the indemnity only protected the store for the landlord’s own negligence, and not the store’s independent negligence, and therefore refused to pay the store’s defense costs or agree to pay for their share of any verdict assessed. The contractor’s insurer took a similar position. It basically became a “pissing contest” between three claims handlers and each one refused to pony up any money.After the verdict, the store filed a motion for judgment as a matter of law on our indemnity claim against the landlord, which was granted. So, initially, the judgment of liability against the store was shifted entirely onto the landlord, which prompted an appeal to the Appellate Division. This was good personally for me because it kept my client from losing faith in me or thinking that I was a total idiot. In the meantime, before the appeal was decided, I tried a few more cases for them which ended up being very good results. After more than a year, the intermediate appellate court determined that the lease agreement did not obligate the landlord to indemnify the store for the store’s own negligence, and because the store was found to be independently causally negligent, it had to pay its own share. By then, I had redeemed myself enough in this client’s eyes that I continued to get work.