Lease Renewal question

[Rydes84]

Looking for some input or possible experience with a situation that popped up today.


My fiance and I rent a house in Cedar Falls through a property management company. Have a standard May 1st to May 1st lease with them. Today I recieved a email from the management group stating we need to decide if we want to lease the house for another year by October 14th or it would go back into the rental pool and be first come first serve for whoever wanted to lease it and they would start having tours for the list of applicants.

I have rented since my junior year of college and have never encountered a situation where I would have to renew a lease so early in my current lease. Does anybody know if there is a rental code against this or has anybody experienced a similar situation. I have nothing against the house or the management company to this point but this seems way early.

 

[IcSyU]

I get the exact same thing each winter from my property manager in Ames for my apartment.

 

[iahawkhunter]

I get the exact same thing each winter from my property manager in Ames for my apartment.

But when is your decision due? My impression that most places in Ames require you to let them know by March 1st, giving them 5-months notice, rather than 7.5-months as in the OP.

I think that Oct 14th for a May 1st lease is ridiculous, but I don't know if there's anything you can do about it. What do the terms in your lease say? Is the letter in contradiction to what you signed? You may just have to call the city to find out what the requirements are.

 

[cytech]

But when is your decision due? My impression that most places in Ames require you to let them know by March 1st, giving them 5-months notice, rather than 7.5-months as in the OP.

I think that Oct 14th for a May 1st lease is ridiculous, but I don't know if there's anything you can do about it. What do the terms in your lease say? Is the letter in contradiction to what you signed? You may just have to call the city to find out what the requirements are.

As a landlord I don't think a 5 and a half month notice for telling the property manager if you are going to lease the unit again is to out of line. It isn't something I do myself but I understand where they are coming from

 

[Land Grant]

There should be clear guidelines on what's legal in the Iowa renter's code.

Landlords will sometimes try to set up illegal requirements that play to their benefit (such as stipulating unreasonably early termination notice dates such as yours). If these run against renter's code they are unenforceable --even if they appear in your signed lease. Letting your LL know that you know the law will usually short circuit such efforts. But if it's legal, you're probably SOL.

Anecdote alert: I had the same thing happen to me in Cali. LL wanted 3 months notice. I quoted him the code (no more than 30 days required) and told him that's what I'd follow. Issue solved.

Looking for some input or possible experience with a situation that popped up today.


My finance and I rent a house in Cedar Falls through a property management company. Have a standard May 1st to May 1st lease with them. Today I recieved a email from the management group stating we need to decide if we want to lease the house for another year by October 14th or it would go back into the rental pool and be first come first serve for whoever wanted to lease it and they would start having tours for the list of applicants.

I have rented since my junior year of college and have never encountered a situation where I would have to renew a lease so early in my current lease. Does anybody know if there is a rental code against this or has anybody experienced a similar situation. I have nothing against the house or the management company to this point but this seems way early.

 

[Rydes84]

As a landlord I don't think a 5 and a half month notice for telling the property manager if you are going to lease the unit again is to out of line. It isn't something I do myself but I understand where they are coming from

I can understand from a landlord perspective to a point, but were not even halfway through our current lease. I have never had a rental company ask before the calender year of current lease expiring. Normally the 3 month mark.

Needless to say I'm going to do some research to see if there is anything in IA rental code.

 

[kilgore_trout]

My management company starts asking 6 months into the lease but a 60-day notice is all that is required per the written terms of the lease (which is customary). I always wait until the last minute to re-sign. At that point, tenants have the most leverage.

You should check your lease. The threat of repeated showings seems like abuse that might be contrary to tenant-landlord laws/codes.

 

[iahawkhunter]

As a landlord I don't think a 5 and a half month notice for telling the property manager if you are going to lease the unit again is to out of line. It isn't something I do myself but I understand where they are coming from

5 months doesn't bother me, especially since it's two months before the rental population leaves town for the summer. I think the 7.5 months that the OP is facing is ridiculous, though.

 

[IcSyU]

Ours is 6. Lease ends on 7/31 and last year we were required to be signed on by 1/13 if we wanted to keep our apt.

I was kinda ****** though because I didn't think in a lease "renewal" the terms (rent in this case) could change. :skeptical:

 

[Nycclone]

I work as a leasing administrator for rent stabilized apartments in NYC. Here we can't send a lease renewal offer to a tenant no more than 150 days prior to a lease expiring and the tenant has 60 days to execute the lease or say no. New York also has some of the dumbest rent laws on the books so take my message with a grain of salt and trash it. What I would do though is check your local rental code is and see what the actual law is in regards to when a lease renewal is to bE sent out and how long you have to execute the contract. If they are not in compliance site the law and make em give you more time. If they are then do what you gotta do.