Red Flag Lease Clauses Every Tenant Should Watch For

The lease clauses most likely to cost you money are generally legal: an automatic renewal with an early notice deadline, acceleration and early termination fees, clauses that move repair costs to you, long fee schedules, one-sided attorney fees, and joint liability for roommates' rent. Find each one before you sign, ask the landlord to change the ones you cannot accept, and get every change into the lease you both sign. A clause that tries to waive a right your state protects is a different problem, because it is void; illegal lease clauses covers those.

Automatic renewal and notice deadlines

A typical clause reads: "This lease renews for an additional 12 months unless either party gives written notice at least 60 days before the end of the term." Miss the deadline and you can be bound to a new term, owing its rent or a fee to get out.

A few states require the landlord to warn you first:

• New York and Wisconsin: the renewal clause cannot be enforced against you unless the landlord sends a written reminder of it 15 to 30 days before your notice deadline. New York requires personal delivery or registered or certified mail.
• Minnesota: the same reminder is required, by personal service or certified mail, when the renewal adds two months or more. Since January 1, 2024, a landlord also cannot require you to renew more than 6 months before the lease ends if your current lease is longer than 10 months.
• Florida: a lease can require your notice at the end of the term only if it also requires the landlord to tell you when it will not renew, and the notice period must be between 30 and 60 days. To charge a set fee for a missed notice, the landlord must first send a written notice listing the charges within the 15 days before your notice period starts.

Ask to have the lease convert to month-to-month at the end of the term instead of renewing for a full year, or to shorten the notice window to 30 days. What happens when your lease expires covers your options at the end date.

Acceleration clauses and early termination fees

An acceleration clause makes all rent for the rest of the term due at once if you break the lease. A liquidated damages clause or early termination fee sets a fixed amount you pay to end the lease early. How much a landlord can actually collect depends on your state:

• New York: the landlord must make a good-faith effort to re-rent the unit, a clause excusing it from that duty is void, and once a new tenant pays the same rent or more, you no longer owe rent.
• Texas: a landlord must mitigate, meaning try to reduce its loss by re-renting, when a tenant leaves early, and a lease cannot waive that duty.
• California: a liquidated damages clause in a residential lease is void unless actual damages would be impracticable or extremely difficult to fix.
• Florida: a liquidated damages amount or early termination fee is allowed only if you signed a separate addendum accepting it, and it cannot exceed 2 months' rent. For an early termination fee, the agreement also cannot require more than 60 days' notice before your proposed termination date. Without that addendum, the landlord can choose to leave the unit empty and hold you to the rent as it comes due.

Example: with $2,000 rent and 8 months left, an acceleration clause demands 8 x $2,000 = $16,000. In New York, if a new tenant moves in at the same rent after one month, you owe about one month's rent, $2,000. In Florida, an addendum fee is capped at 2 x $2,000 = $4,000, plus rent through the month the landlord takes back the unit.

Two related clauses speed up the landlord's response when you fall behind. Pennsylvania lets a lease shorten or waive the landlord's written notice to quit, the notice telling you to move out that comes before an eviction case, which otherwise is 10 days for unpaid rent. A Texas lease can let the landlord change your locks when you owe rent, after written notice at least 5 days ahead by mail or 3 days by hand delivery or posting inside your door, but the landlord must give you a new key at any hour whether or not you pay.

If you might move before the term ends, ask for an early termination option with set terms, such as a notice period and a fixed fee, or the right to bring in a qualified replacement tenant. Breaking a lease early covers what to do if you have to leave.

Clauses that shift repairs to you

Watch for wording such as "Tenant is responsible for all repairs under $300," "Tenant maintains the heating system and appliances," or "Premises accepted as is." Some states allow these shifts only under strict conditions:

• Texas: a lease can make you pay for repairs to conditions that affect health or safety only if the landlord owns just one rental home and the unit had no such conditions at move-in. At the start of the lease, the landlord must also have no reason to believe such a condition is likely to occur or recur during the lease or any renewal or extension. Any landlord can make you pay for three items unless its own negligence caused them: drain stoppages caused by objects in lines that serve only your unit, damage to doors, windows, or screens, and damage from doors or windows left open. Either agreement must be underlined or in bold, specific, and made knowingly and for something in return.
• Florida: for a single-family home or duplex, the lease can change in writing the landlord's duty to keep the home up to building, housing, and health codes.

Ask to limit your repair duty to damage you or your guests cause, set a dollar cap per repair, and keep heating, plumbing, and landlord-supplied appliances with the landlord.

Fee schedules

Read the fee list as carefully as the rent. It can include late fees, returned-payment fees, administrative or processing fees, amenity, trash, and pest control fees, utility billing fees, and fees for renewing or breaking the lease. The late-fee caps in New York and Texas are in understanding your lease terms; other limits include:

• Texas: a landlord that collects a late fee the law does not allow owes you $100, plus three times the improper fee, plus your reasonable attorney's fees.
• New York: a credit and background check fee is capped at $20, and a landlord cannot charge an applicant fees beyond the rent and security deposit for the chance to rent the apartment, often called key money.
• California: a returned-check fee must be in the lease and reasonable, such as the bank's charge plus the landlord's costs, or the landlord can charge the state's bad-check service charge of up to $25 for the first returned check and $35 for each one after that.

Add up every recurring monthly fee and compare the total, not the rent alone, with other listings.

One-sided attorney fee clauses

A clause that says "Tenant will pay Landlord's attorney fees in any legal action" means that if you lose a dispute, you can pay the landlord's lawyer as well as your own. New York reads in a matching right: if the lease lets the landlord recover fees, you can recover yours when you win. California lets whoever wins a lease dispute recover fees under the clause, even if it names only the landlord, but you can collect them only if a lawyer represented you. Elsewhere, ask for "prevailing party" wording, so the side that wins gets its fees paid.

Joint and several liability for roommates

"Each tenant is jointly and severally liable" means the landlord can collect the full rent, and anything else the lease makes the tenants owe, from any one of you. Minnesota's Attorney General gives the example of two roommates splitting rent 50/50: if one moves out early, the other still owes 100 percent unless the landlord agrees otherwise. Ask for individual leases, or for a clause that releases a roommate who leaves once a replacement the landlord approves signs on, and put your own split of rent and damage costs in a written roommate agreement.

How to negotiate changes and get them in writing

1. Ask before you sign, while the landlord still needs your agreement to rent you the unit. Put your requests in an email that quotes each clause and the wording you want instead.
2. Offer something the landlord values, such as a longer term or an earlier move-in date; how to negotiate rent before signing covers how to judge your bargaining position.
3. Change the lease itself. California's guide describes two methods: write the change by hand with both of you initialing next to it, or retype the lease and have every party sign. A signed addendum also works; see lease addendums and amendments.
4. Do not rely on spoken promises. The written lease should contain every promise the landlord or its agent made to you.
5. Keep a copy signed by both sides. A California landlord must give you one within 15 days of signing, and a Texas landlord within 3 business days.