One of my goals has always been to get the paperwork under control - to have my leases "match up" regarding clauses and phrases, and to make sure renewal leases incorporated any terms I have changed or added during the past year. My lease is a living document: it changes according to what happens at move-outs, things I learn here and at the Convention, etc.
But even starting with one master lease, they quickly became too specialized per unit, property or town, depending on circumstances.
Some pay their own power. Some have sub-meters and reimburse us for their portion. Some pay their water directly, some have sub-meters and reimburse us. Some are on well. Trash service differs. Mail service differs. Lawn care. Etc.
We identified all of the differences, and all of the customized places in a lease (name, rent, security deposit, rent and SD accounts, term, pets or no pets, etc.)
DH created a master data file and a master lease using my most recent version. Now when I need to create a lease, I go to the data file (a spreadsheet) and enter the data there. For the customized places, we created a list of paragraphs for those properties and I can choose from a list of conditions.
This data is then merged into the master lease and creates the "personalized" version for that tenant.
This does two big things for us:
1) Tenant data is now entered into one file - if I need to check a tenant's rent or security deposit amount or term or whatever, I just look in one file for all of them.
2) If I generally update the Master Lease, it will be updated for every subsequent lease for every property from then on.
Renewal season is upon us (Spring) so I'm hopeful this saves time and angst, making sure everyone is operating under the general lease!
--50.82.xxx.xx