The ninety days before a lease ends

The end of a fixed term is the one moment in a tenancy when everything is genuinely open — the rent, the term, whether it continues at all. It is also the moment most self-managing landlords notice a fortnight too late, at which point most of the options have quietly closed.

Put the end date in your calendar the day you sign, with a reminder ninety days before. Everything below hangs off that one habit.

Ninety days out: decide what you want

Before you talk to anyone, answer three questions honestly. Do you want this tenant to stay? Is the rent where it should be? Is there work on the property that is easier done between tenancies than around one?

A good tenant who pays slightly under market is worth more than a stranger paying market, because the stranger comes with a vacancy, a letting cost, a screening cycle, and a genuine chance of being worse. Do that arithmetic before you decide the rent is too low.

Sixty days out: have the conversation

Ask, plainly, whether they intend to stay. Tenants are usually more forthcoming than landlords expect, and the answer changes everything you do next. If you intend to increase the rent, this is when to say so — a rent increase is a conversation followed by a formal notice, never a formal notice arriving cold.

Thirty days out: paper the decision

1. 1 Renewing: issue the new agreement early enough to be signed before the current term lapses.
2. 2 Increasing the rent: serve the correct notice, for the correct period, and keep proof of service.
3. 3 Ending it: check that your grounds and your notice period are current, and that the date you have calculated is the date the Act produces.
4. 4 Doing nothing deliberately: understand that the tenancy will usually continue as periodic, with different notice rules on both sides.

The fortnight before

If the tenancy is ending, book the outgoing inspection, confirm what “reasonably clean” means for this property in writing, and get your ingoing condition report out ready to compare. If it is continuing, file the new agreement against the tenancy and reset the calendar reminder for the next end date.

Nothing about lease expiry is difficult. It is only ever late.