Lease Renewal 101: Your Options 60 Days Before It Ends
Your tenant’s lease ends in about two months, and the clock is already running. Renew on the same terms, raise the rent, or let them go: that is the whole decision, and while there are many factors at play here, once you name your decision, the next step is to take action.
Your three options
Every lease that reaches its end date lands on one of three choices.
Renew. You keep the same tenant and sign a new term at the same rent, either another fixed term (say another 12 months) or a shorter one. The tenant you already know stays, and your unit never sits empty.
Raise the rent, then renew. You keep the tenant but reset the rent to the number this year’s market and your costs call for. This is still a renewal, so the new rent goes right in the renewal offer and the new lease they sign. A standalone rent increase notice is a different tool, for when you are keeping a month to month tenant and only changing the rent, not moving them to a new term.
Not renew. You decide not to offer a new term, and the tenancy ends when the lease does. This is a business decision, not a punishment, and it is a different thing from an eviction. More on that below.
All three decisions start with the same first move, which is deciding early depending on your lease, and local laws your notice needs to be sent as much as 90 days prior to lease expiration.
Timeline simplified
Every option has a notice attached, and a notice takes time to be valid, so work backward from the lease end date.
6 months into the lease. This is the time to be checking market rents, looking at the average listing price for comparable units, how long they sit on the market, and comparing them to your situation.
Around 90 days out. If you are in Oregon, and you wish to raise the rent at the one year mark you must send your notice now. More on that below.
Around 60 days out. Decide which of the three you are leaning toward. Look again at the rent against your market, the shape the unit is in, and how this tenancy has actually gone.
Around 45 days out. Send the paper that matches your choice: a renewal offer if you are renewing (with the new rent stated in it, if you are raising it), or a non-renewal notice if you are ending the term. Sending it here gives the tenant room to say yes, counter, or plan their move, and gives you room to re-list if you need to.
Around 30 days out. Get the signature or confirm the plan. If they are renewing, the new lease is signed and dated before the old one lapses. If they are leaving, you have a move-out date and can start turnover. If they have gone quiet, you know now, while there is still time to act, send a follow up notice.
There is no exact timeline as every lease and state/local law are different. Double check yours to ensure you give proper notice.
Three notices, three different timelines
A renewal, a rent increase, and a non-renewal are not the same notice, and they often do not run on the same timing. States set their own required notice periods, and some set separate, longer ones for a rent increase or for ending a longer tenancy.
Notice periods for ending or changing a tenancy commonly run 30 days, though they range from as little as 7 days to as long as 90 depending on the state, the type of tenancy, and how long the tenant has lived there. A rent increase can carry its own, sometimes longer, required notice. The safe habit is to look up your own state before you send anything, since a notice sent short can be invalid.
This is where making your decision, or at least starting to think about your decision well in advance can be beneficial. While none of us ever know what is going to happen in 3 to 6 months time, having an idea of your desired outcome with your rental and current tenant will help prepare you to know which timeline law to look up.
A no-cause non-renewal has limits
Choosing not to renew is usually your call to make, and in much of the country you do not owe the tenant a reason. That does not make it a blank check, and two limits apply everywhere.
The first is fair housing. Your reason for not renewing cannot be based on a protected class. Under the federal Fair Housing Act that means race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and disability, and many states and cities add more, like source of income or marital status. You can read the protected classes on HUD’s Fair Housing Act overview and the Department of Justice’s summary.
The second is retaliation. Most states bar you from ending or refusing to renew a tenancy because the tenant did something they are legally allowed to do, like report a repair problem or contact a housing agency. Nolo keeps a state by state rundown of retaliation rules.
A few states require “just cause” to end a tenancy even at the end of a term, once the tenant has lived there long enough. California is one, under Civil Code 1946.2, which after 12 months of tenancy asks for a stated at-fault or no-fault reason. Oregon is another, under Senate Bill 608, which pairs a statewide rent cap with just-cause rules after the first year. If you rent in a just-cause state or city, that changes what a non-renewal even looks like, so check your own state before you count on a plain no-cause ending.
A non-renewal ends a tenancy at its natural end date. An eviction is a court process for cause during a tenancy. They are different roads, and treating a non-renewal like a shortcut to remove a tenant mid-lease is how landlords end up in trouble.
Automatic month to month
If nobody does anything, the lease usually rolls over. Say the end date comes and goes, no new lease is signed, no notice went out, and the tenant is still paying and living there. In most cases the tenancy does not vanish. It usually converts to a month to month arrangement on the terms of the old lease, which either side can then end with proper notice. The specifics live in your lease and your state’s law, so read your own agreement, but Nolo’s state chart of notice rules for a month to month tenancy is a good start.
Depending on your rental relationship, sometimes a rollover is exactly what you want. It only becomes a problem when it happens by accident, because you meant to raise the rent or end the term and the date slipped past you.
Inside: a plain English guide with a decision matrix for every tenant response, a one page renewal checklist, the lease renewal notice, the renewal agreement, four rent increase notices, and no-cause and just-cause non-renewal notices, plus a 50-state guide to notice periods and rent caps. Editable Word and fillable PDF, US Letter and A4.
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