Whats the difference between a lease and a rental agreement?
The main difference is that a lease is for a set period of time, usually one year, while a rental agreement is month-to-month. Either arrangement can be oral or written. Multifamily housing buyers should ask which tenants have leases and which have month-to-month agreements and obtain copies of the written agreements. 2. Can a new owner raise existing tenants’ rents? If a tenant has a lease, the owner can’t adjust the rent until the lease expires. If a tenant has a month-to-month agreement, the owner can increase the rent, although state law may require prior notice of rent increases. The same dichotomy is generally true for any other changes in the terms of the tenants’ rental agreements. Landlord-tenant relationships are governed by a patchwork of federal, state and local laws.
