Joint Lease vs. Individual Lease

There are two methods of lease structures for multiple tenants: signing each tenant individually (or “by-the-bedroom”), or jointly (also called “one lease”). Depending on your preference, your rental property location, and your residents, one lease structure may be better than the other. Let’s take a moment to examine joint lease vs. individual lease so that you decide what is best for your rentals.

JOINT LEASE vs. INDIVIDUAL LEASE

Generally, joint leases provide flexibility during the management process. Two or more tenants rent an entire apartment or house as a single unit. Therefore, all tenants are equally responsible for their private rooms, the common areas, and also for the rooms and behaviors of their roommates. This kind of rental agreement places accountability on all tenants on matters such as payments, maintenance charges, utilities, late fees, etc.

On the other hand, individual leases provide flexibility during the leasing process. Two or more people living in the same unit take responsibility only for their room and use of common areas. Each tenant pays their rent separately. Additional expenses or line items for common areas such as the kitchen or living room may be added. Most landlords, however, will just include the costs into the rent price for the bedroom itself.

Typically at Green Ocean Property Management, we have everybody on one or joint lease. In addition to the description above, this will keep consistency across all of your tenants and you, the landlord, won’t have to worry about:

• different lease break end dates 

• several people having different rules and regulations to follow within the leases

• the entire rent being paid

One of the most important things is that if someone doesn’t pay, everybody else in the unit is responsible. The same thing goes with utilities. For any separately metered utilities, they will want to make sure it’s paid for as a combined group.

Our commitment

If you or anyone else you know is looking for a proactive property manager that can guide you on joint lease and individual lease, please think of Green Ocean Property Management: where you get more than a property manager, you get peace of mind.