LEASE SIGNING PROCEDURES

LEASE SIGNING PROCEDURES
by Harry A. Heist, Attorney at Law

Once your applicant is approved, you are only part of the way there. You want the applicant to become an actual resident. This is accomplished through the signing of the lease and the addenda to the lease by all parties. While this is a simple process, errors are made which can result in the lease not being fully or properly executed, and this could enable the resident to get out of the lease obligations, or could present even greater problems if all the residents do not sign the lease, with possession being granted without all signatures on the lease documents. Following a checklist and carefully consummating the “deal” in the lease and addenda signing process is essential. There will be ample time later for mistakes to be made; the lease signing is not that time.

Who Signs the Lease?

All adult occupants should be lease signatories. Unless an adult occupant is somehow incapacitated and incompetent to be a lease signer, all adults living in the unit should sign the lease as “residents”. They will be named in the body of the lease, usually at the beginning and also in the signatory section, if this differs than the beginning of the lease.

Suppose the Applicant does not meet your Resident Selection Criteria?

Your company may have a policy that both parties (assuming 2 residents) must meet the company’s resident selection criteria and/or be approved by the screening company in order to qualify for occupancy. Some companies only require one party to meet the criteria. Regardless of your company policy, all adults need to be signatories, even if one does not meet your company’s criteria and your company still allows both residents to move in. A serious, common mistake is to allow the party that meets the resident selection criteria, or who is approved by the screening company, sign the lease as a resident, and not make the one who fails to independently qualify sign anything, with the lease only referring to this individual as an occupant.

Possible consequences of having an adult listed as an occupant only

An occupant who is not a lease signer has the best of both worlds. She has the benefits of the lease but have no written legal obligation to the landlord. Further, situations occur when the resident who signs the lease vacates, leaving the occupant behind in the unit, who may or may not pay the rent. If the occupant pays the rent, she establishes a potential separate tenancy with you, and this further confuses matters. If the occupant violates the lease terms, the landlord must pursue the resident who signed the lease, and this person could be long gone.

All spaces, sections and initial areas must be completed by all parties

Many leases unfortunately have too many spaces for the parties to sign. This can and often does result in parties not signing all the sections or failing to initial all the sections where initials are required. The more spaces to sign or initial, the greater the risk of a space being missed. The resident can argue that since she did not sign or initial a designated space, she did not agree to it. Try to see if your company can revise you lease to reduce the number of spaces for the parties to sign or initial, and take great care in your current lease to make sure no space is missed by any party. Take your time and look at each and every page to see if they have all been initialed and signed by all parties before you as the manager put your signature on the lease and addenda. Make sure that where signature lines appear, the residents use their signatures, not their printed names or initials.

Verifying Identity and Identification Copying

If your company has a policy to not copy identification, including but not limited to the driver’s license, state ID card, passport or Social Security card, during the application process, all these items should be copied for the file at lease signing. There is no law prohibiting the copying of these items, and they may be needed later for identification purposes, collections and bad check prosecution. If one or both of the lease signers do not have the identification in their possession for signing, the process needs to STOP, and the lease should not be signed by anyone or possession granted, until all the lease signers bring in their identification. Property managers should never let their guard down or fall for the, “I forgot my ID and will bring it to you later” excuse. NO ID, NO lease signing. It does not matter if the applicant has his driver’s license or Social Security number memorized. Demand to see the documents. Failure of management to look at the documents is the primary cause of identity theft in the leasing process.

All parties to lease must sign lease before possession is granted

A common mistake is made when one approved applicant signs the lease, but the other is not available for whatever reason at that time to sign. While many property managers claim they will not give out the keys until all parties sign, our office commonly sees the situation when only one approved applicant has signed. The typical scenario is that one of the parties comes to the office, signs, and the other party is to come at a later time or for some reason is unavailable, due to an emergency or other reason. The move-in date is the next day or sooner, the keys are given to the resident who has signed the lease, and the other approved applicant who is to sign the lease never comes in. The file is placed in the filing cabinet and forgotten. The party who is supposed to come in and sign the lease never does, and this is all discovered later when there is a noncompliance, skip or eviction. The party who has not signed the lease has no legal obligations to the landlord. Sometimes, the party who did sign the lease will attempt to break the lease by saying that since all parties did not sign, the document is incomplete and therefore not legally binding on anyone. Your strict rule should be simple. All parties sign the lease, or no one gets any keys.

Reprinted with the permission of the Law Offices of Heist, Weisse, Davis & Wolk www.evict.com

When in doubt, leave it to a professional. JCG Property Management is a Fort Lauderdale based property management company located at 910 SE 17 Street. Janice Correale Gomez is a licensed Realtor with Coldwell Banker. For additional information visit http://www.fortlauderdalepropertymanagement.com or call Janice at 954.847.1126