There are tons of situations where, during the middle of the lease, the conditions or situation at your apartment complex change, and suddenly you are presented with a Lease Addendum brought to you by your landlord. Do you have to sign this or can you simply refuse? And most importantly, can my landlord make me pay more during the middle of my lease?
A landlord cannot make material changes to the lease agreement, or add additional fees to the tenant, unless those changes and fees are agreed upon by BOTH the landlord and the tenant.
A common addition that is made to lease agreements is on the topic of what the tenant pays for and what the landlord pays for. There are many instances where the underlying conditions at the apartment complex change, and in such cases, changes may need to be made to the lease agreement which can result in the tenant paying more than they were the previous months.
Know that your landlord cannot change the terms of the lease that is currently in effect unless you, the tenant, agree to those changes as well. If your landlord is trying to push through a significant change, or even an insignificant change to the terms of the lease, make sure that you know that you do not have to sign the lease agreement if you don’t want to.
You already have signed the legally enforceable agreement when you moved in. Feel free to decline the offer to adjust the lease, especially if it is not in your favor.
Can My Landlord Change The Lease Agreement?
Your landlord can change the lease agreement under two conditions. 1) Both the tenant and the landlord agree on the changes and sign an addendum. Or 2) The changes are made at the end of the lease before the lease is renewed.
Landlords make changes to their lease agreements all the time. They do this to keep up with the ever-changing environment that they live and operate in. Maybe they need to tighten up the parking policy. Perhaps trash and water now need to be paid by the tenant for whatever reason. Maybe the rent just needs to be raised across the board. Whatever the reason, landlords do this all the time as part of normal operating procedures.
What landlords CANNOT do is modify the lease in any way during the middle of the signed lease unless the tenant agrees to those changes.
Now, there are many times where these terms are very agreeable to both parties. Let’s say there have been multiple issues with the parking policy and other tenants are getting mad that guests are constantly showing up and parking in their spots. The general lease agreement doesn’t lay out the parking procedure effectively, so there needs to be a change.
With something like this, virtually all the existing tenants are going to want to voluntarily agree to the change in the lease agreement because they are all going to be benefitting from the new rules.
The other way that the landlord can modify the lease is at the end of the lease term for a tenant. Say a tenant has a lease that is going to expire in 3 months. The landlord wants to make changes now, but the tenant doesn’t want to agree to the new terms. That’s fine, they don’t have to, but the landlord has the right to change the lease for the NEW lease that the tenants will have to sign to keep on renting at the apartment complex.
In this case, the tenant can either choose to agree to the new terms, whatever they are, and keep renting, or refuse the new terms and find somewhere else to live. But the landlord has the right to change the lease agreement at the end of the lease.
Because not everyone is going to have their lease agreement expire at the same time, any sweeping or major changes to policies or payments at the apartment complex are most likely going to be done with new tenants coming in, and on a case by case basis with tenants as their lease expires and they look to renew their lease.
Can I Refuse To Sign A Lease Addendum?
Yes, a tenant can refuse to sign a lease addendum for any reason, as long as they are in the middle of a long-term lease. You cannot be evicted for refusing to sign an addendum to your current lease.
The document you signed when you moved into your apartment is a legally enforceable document that is valid from the day you signed it until the day it expires. If either party wants to make changes to it, they BOTH have to agree on it. One party cannot force the other one to make changes they do not want to make. Nor can the landlord evict or threaten to evict a tenant for refusing to sign the addendum.
Landlords DO have the right to make changes to the lease when it expires though. So, once the lease comes due, and the tenant needs to resign for the upcoming year, the landlord can but whatever changes they want into the lease.
At that point, the tenant can choose whether or not they agree to those changes and want to stay as a resident, or whether they would rather live someone else.
However, if your landlord is trying to get your to sign changes in your lease that you do not agree to, feel free to tell them that that is against the law, and you are under no obligation to sign any changes until your original lease expires.
Can You Get Evicted By Not Signing A New Lease?
Yes, you can be evicted if you don’t sign a new lease once your old one expires.
The lease agreement is the document that allows you to live on the landlord’s property. The landlord is the owner of the property and therefore can determine who lives there and who doesn’t. This is where the lease comes in. It is an agreement between the two parties that lays out the rules and regulations for staying and living on their property in the apartment building they have built.
If the landlord is wanting to change the terms of the lease, they can do so if both parties agree to it, or as I said above, at the end of the lease. At this point, the tenant MUST either agree to the terms of the new lease or find somewhere else to live.
The tenant cannot just refuse to sign a new lease in the hopes that the landlord won’t be able to modify the terms of the agreement. The expiration date works as a benefit for both the landlord and the tenant. The tenant only has a certain amount of time in which they are obligated to pay rent to the landlord, but the landlord also has the ability after the time period is up to modify the terms of the lease if they see fit.
Now, the tenant doesn’t have to agree to those new terms necessarily, but the landlord is under no obligation to rent to them if they don’t agree to their terms either. It has to be agreed upon by both parties.
If you don’t sign a new lease, the landlord can evict you through normal eviction procedures.
Landlords cannot charge you more fees or change the terms of the agreements laid out in the lease during the middle of your lease term unless both the tenant and the landlord agree to those terms. Additionally, landlords cannot evict, or threaten to evict you for not signing the addendum to the lease.
What a landlord can do is modify the lease as they see fit at the end of the lease, and then present it to the tenant, in which case, they can choose to agree to and sign the new lease or find somewhere else to live.
Either way, a good agreement is one that both parties willingly agree to.
