I got a lease addendum which states “this lease shall become effective upon the receipt of all security deposits, and the payment of the first months rent”. The keys are not given till the payment".
So far, we haven’t had anyone breaking locks and moving in, but it could happen.
But, so early in the month, we often had many requests for allowing tenants to bring stuff in early, say as of March 15, particulary with early payment of the April rent, with the agreement to rent up as of April 1. The thinking is, I paid the rent, I got the lease, and the place is empty anyway.
We allowed early movein when we were novice landlords.
Then, we had a tenant who rented our place the last week of August for Oct 1, even though the place was ready for Sept 1. Their argument was they had to give their landlord 30 days notice.
Then they asked to move their stuff in early. We then compromised on receiving the Oct rent by Sept 15, and allowing them to move the stuff in early.
Nowadays, we always ask to see every roommate, which we didn’t in this case, and as it turned out, we had to go by fix something and this third roommate whom we never met was home. She then said that how nice things turned out as they had to vacate where they lived by Aug 31, and was able to drag things out two weeks finally able to move their stuff in by Sept 15, not realizing what the other roommate said.
Here, the other roommate was telling us that they didn’t need it till Oct 1. We learned later on they were asked to leave by Aug 31.
After this, if we have a unit ready for Sept 1, and someone said they have to give 30 days notice, we say “we appreciate your being fair to your current landlord, but we have folks needing it sooner than you, and they get priority”. We say this, OK we lied, even though at times, we don’t have someone needing it right away.
Or if we rent it out for Oct 1, we don’t give the keys out till Sept 30.
In fact, the last SFH we rented out, this happened. It was the first week of May, and the tenant wanted to rent it out for Jul 1, saying they need to give at least 30 days notice, and its already into May.
So I gave the speech that I got someone who’ll rent it out as of this coming Monday, which I did. Someone said, I need it today and wrote it on the application, which I showed this tenant. But this particular tenant was much stronger financially, with the wife earning over 125K/year. and the husband has several part time jobs. Having tenants earning more than 125K/year is rare.
And because we stood firm, it was rented out for May 15, with them complaining they got stuck paying rent at TWO places for 6 weeks.
Finally, right before movein, they said they got some good news. Their prior landlord after hearing them whining about paying rent at two places, felt bad, waived the 30 days notice, and didn’t charge them rent after May 15. With rents running $2,000/month, its $3,000 more in our pockets. Nothing to sneeze at.
Better the money out of the last landlords pocket than mine.