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The owners of our house recently parted ways with our old property manager, (who was great, she sent people to fix things when they were broken!), and hired a new one. The new manager has not sent over a new lease for us to sign yet as there is some delay in reaching the owners but he wants us to send a cashiers check for this month’s rent ASAP. I just found this out today after him telling us to wait to pay Feb rent until the new lease was finished and the online payment account was set up. I don’t want to start out on a bad foot with the new manager, but I am uncomfortable giving him a cashier’s check written to his business without an addendum to the lease/new lease showing him as the property manager. Am I being paranoid?
Don't you already have a lease? If you do and it has time left on it you don't have to sign a new one until it expires. At least not unless a new lease would be more favorable to you than the old one.
Bottom line, though, is you are still obligated to pay your rent on the rent due date even without a lease.
Make it out to the homeowner. You can't go wrong doing that.
Don't you already have a lease? If you do and it has time left on it you don't have to sign a new one until it expires. At least not unless a new lease would be more favorable to you than the old one.
Bottom line, though, is you are still obligated to pay your rent on the rent due date even without a lease.
Make it out to the homeowner. You can't go wrong doing that.
Totally agree. My long-distance LL recently severed ties with her local property manager and announced I could start giving my rent checks to her son, who is a sweet-tempered flake and hardly ever around. Nope, not doing that.
I send it electronically directly to her via Zelle. Which works for us.
I don't think you are being too paranoid. There are horror stories out there. Unless the property owner notified you of who to give your rent check to, I would send your rent directly to the property owner.
Yes, we still have a year left on our lease but the manager said we need a new lease because of the management change. I have been asking to pay rent since the 1st and the new manager kept putting me off. The other issue is that the person that is supposed to be authorizing the transfer between managers is not the person on record as the owner per title. I think it’s a relative that lives here in the US. The owners are all foreign and I do not have away to contact them.
If you don't have a new lease and haven't been officially notified of where to start sending your check, by the owner, or by your previous manager at least, you should do what your lease that's currently in effect says to do. What I'd do, is send your check via priority mail with tracking to wherever you've been sending it.
You don't have to sign a new lease, by the way, if your current one is still in effect.
I don't think you're being paranoid. Cover your rear first. And know that you are not required to sign a new lease.
You have a contract that is between you and the owner - via his then-agent. The agent can change, but the lease can't be changed unless both parties agree to it.
So, if you don't feel like signing a new one, you don't have to. Your current lease probably has some clause that says that the payment method can change with 30 days notice or something like that. But, the rest of the terms stay in place.
Know that, and if you're willing to look at a new lease, know that you have the power to say no to anything in it you don't like, and you don't have to agree to a different termination date, etc. You don't have to just sign it. And you sure don't have to wait to pay some new agent, because he doesn't want you to pay the last guy until he gets his own contract completed with the owner.
Don't put yourself in a position to get an eviction notice and don't trust him, is my advice. You can always play kind of dumb and not be confrontational. "I'm sorry, I was just getting worried about not paying my rent on time, and I was advised to do it that way. This way I at least have proof of trying to pay my rent....."
Woops, we were posting at the same time. I would keep sending payments the way you always have. You have a contract, so just tell anybody trying to get you to do something differently, that you have a contract and you're going to do what it says until they give you documents that you can show your lawyer. Then, wait and see if they actually give you anything that looks official. Then, I'd run it by a lawyer, if it seems weird.
And I wouldn't sign a new contract. There is no need to. Your contract is good for one year. If they legitimately want you to send your payments somewhere else, that's all they need to notify you of. No need for a new contract. Just say no, unless the new contract gives you more than you have now.
Landlords try to get tenants to sign new contracts or amendments to contracts when the tenant isn't really required to do so. I live in subsidized senior housing and the management recently gave all tenants a notice of eviction - saying we'd be evicted if we didn't sign a new amendment to our contracts within 30 days. Totally bogus. Scared the stuffing out of a bunch of seniors who were lined up to hurry and turn in the signed amendments. I told them I liked my contract just fine, thank you and I would not be signing it, but I would be forwarding it to the Housing Authority, since they require notice of any eviction notices. Yeah, they backed down. But, it's annoying how landlords or managers try to trick tenants into signing things they don't have to sign. Makes me mad.
Just know you are the one with the power to just say no, here, at least as far as signing a new contract. And as far as where you send your check until you get something official.
Don't know where you live, but some cities and states have courts where your rent can go into a trust type fund until things like this get sorted out. Maybe you could check to see if there's a tenant union or contact a fair housing office, where you can maybe get some free help.
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