Lease Agreement

The detached garage on the alley sat empty until a neighbor asked about it for his work van, cash, month to month, sealed with a handshake. Six months later he stopped paying and started calling it his garage. A parking space rental agreement is what stops that slide: it decides whether you can revoke the deal or have to evict, whether you are renting a space or holding a car, and what happens when a stranger parks where they should not. Here is a free template plus the license, liability, and towing rules that make it hold.

Rent was due on the first; it is the fourth, the tenant has always paid, and your app still shows nothing. Before you reach for an eviction threat, you send a late rent notice: a dated, civil reminder that rent is past due, with any late fee your lease actually allows. This page has a free template plus the grace periods and late-fee caps for nine states, verified against the statutes, from Maine’s 15-day, 4% rule to Texas’s two-day, 12% one.

Three years of cash rent, an envelope over the fence, and not one line of paper: that is how a tenant who never missed a month ends up facing a pay-or-quit notice. A rent receipt is five fields and a signature, and in New York, Washington, Texas, Maryland, and Delaware the statute makes it mandatory for cash. Here is a free template with the partial-payment balance line most forms skip, plus every verified state rule.

The application is perfect except the income line, and then the applicant’s father calls: what if I sign for it? A co-signer agreement is how that sentence becomes enforceable, one signed guaranty with the scope, the dollar cap, the renewal answer, and the credit-check consent in writing. Here is a free form to copy, the statute-of-frauds rule that voids every verbal version, and the continuing-guaranty layer nobody else explains.

The tenant asked first: can we adopt a dog? A pet addendum is how the yes goes on paper, one named animal, the deposit and rent in their legal shapes, the rules the permission rides on. Here is a free template to copy, the verified state pet-deposit rules from California’s inside-the-cap regime to Delaware’s one-month ceiling, and the assistance-animal rule that overrides everything else.

The unit belongs to the landlord; the home belongs to the tenant. A notice to enter is how both rights survive a repair, an inspection, or a showing. Here is a free template to copy, every verified state lead time from California’s 24 hours to Delaware’s 48 and the states that leave it all to the lease, plus the emergency exception and the harassment line nobody explains.