Leases and When to Give Notice

My life has been very busy. Since getting my license. I have been meeting with Paul Zurek, the Bray Office Manager, and I have a mentor. She is Vonnie Folkers, a Colorado real estate broker at Bray Real Estate. She has been a big help in helping me see how things work "in the real world."

Moving on to our real estate talk, let's discuss leases in Colorado. A lease is an agreement between a landlord/owner/lessor (whatever word you want to use) and a tenant/renter/lessee (again, whatever word you want to use). Because of the statute of frauds, a lease for longer than one year has to be in writing to be effective. However, it's always best to get a written lease because the written paper reminds people what the arrangements are.

There are four kinds of leases. There is a lease called a "tenancy for years." It's a lease for a definite time period, which could be for 1 day, 6 weeks, 4 months, 1 year, or 50 years. Because it's clear when the lease ends, no one needs to "give notice" unless he/she wants to change the length of time.

Another kind of lease is called a "periodic tenancy." This is a lease that is for a time that constantly renews. If it's a weekly or monthly lease, it continues until either the landlord or tenant gives the other party notice that he/she doesn't want it to continue. For this change, it needs to be written notice and here are some guidelines according to Colorado statutes 13-40-107:
1 year, or longer, lease—3 months notice
6 months up to 1 year lease—1 month notice
1 month up to 6 months lease—10 days
1 week up to 1 month lease—3 days

There's also "tenancy at will," which is when a landlord and tenant have an informal arrangement that exists until one party isn't interested any more or some event takes place. For example, this could happen when a property is for sale and the agreement exists until it is sold. Only 3 days notice is needed in a tenancy at will. That isn't much notice, but often the people involved know what's going on before the official notice is needed. These are friendly leases.

Finally, there is also something called "tenancy at sufferance." This happens when the tenant stays after a lease has ended. The landlord can decide to renew the lease, accept rent and/or change the rental terms, or evict the tenant. For eviction, the landlord needs to give notice. Obviously the tenant wouldn't give an eviction notice.

Now we've talked about leases expiring and the tenant getting evicted. Two other ways to end a lease are "surrender and acceptance," which is when both the landlord and tenant agree to end the arrangement, and "breach of conditions," which is when either the landlord or the tenant agreed to do certain things and it just didn't happen. Depending on what happened, the wronged party may walk away from the lease.

If you need other information, there is information at the Colorado Division of Housing.