Leases VS. Tenant-at-Will: When Do You Use Both?

If you own a property and worked with a property manager before, you may have heard of these terms already: tenant-at-will and leases. Lease being the common has been used to outline the list of agreements between the tenant and the landlord. In this article, we will discuss more tenancy-at-will and leases together with their pros and cons.

What is tenant-at-will?

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Tenancy-at-will is a written agreement between the landlord and the tenant. One good example of this is when a landlord gives you a permission to stay in the property WITHOUT a lease agreement.

Pros and cons of lease and tenant-at-will

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If the lease expires and the landlord didn’t do the lease agreement, that would automatically be a tenant-at-will. It’s not a situation we want most landlords to be in because we want to be able to have a consistent income. But sometimes, we put some delinquent tenants in a tenant-at-will for a short time frame because it’s easier for us to also state, “Okay, you have to leave and you have your 30 days notice,”  Whereas if there’s a lease, we have them until it expires.

In addition, leases allow us to have a consistent amount of money. Although tenant-at-will is nice because you can increase your rent every single month if you give that notice. It’s very unlikely you would do it but you do have that flexibility, should you want to. You might be looking to sell the property later on, and sell it as an owner-occupied. That is the type of situation where we might want to use the tenant-at-will because you’re able to get a tenant out easier and faster rather than having them in full time.

If you or anyone else you know is looking for a proactive property manager that can guide you on different situations, where a tenant-at-will might be beneficial for you, please think of Green Ocean Property Management, you get more than a property manager, you get peace of mind.