An online lease agreement is not a different legal instrument from a paper one. It is the same contract, signed electronically, and in most of the United States electronic signatures on a residential lease are enforceable under the federal ESIGN Act and state equivalents. What changes online is the failure mode: it is much easier to send a template you have not read.
This is a practical checklist of what a residential lease should contain and what most often goes wrong. It is general information about a process, not legal advice, and landlord-tenant law is state and often city specific. Have a lawyer in your jurisdiction review the lease you actually use.
Why the lease should match the listing
The most common source of a first-month argument is a mismatch between what the listing said and what the lease says. The listing advertised "utilities included" and the lease charges for electricity. The listing said pets welcome and the lease imposes pet rent that was never mentioned. The listing said available 1 March and the lease starts on the 15th.
None of those are usually dishonest. They happen because the listing was written from memory and the lease came from a template. The fix is mechanical: write the listing from the same field list the lease uses, so rent, deposit, term, start date, utilities, parking, pets and laundry are the same values in both documents. That field list is the reason the Listing Grader checks the eleven facts it does.
The clauses every lease needs
- Parties and property. Full legal names of every adult occupant and the exact address including the unit number.
- Term. Start date, end date, and what happens at the end: automatic month-to-month, automatic renewal, or expiry. Say which.
- Rent. Amount, due date, accepted payment methods, where it is paid, and the late fee with the grace period. Late fees are capped in many states.
- Security deposit. Amount, where it is held, the conditions for return, and the deadline for returning it. Deposit caps and return deadlines are both state law.
- Utilities. Which are included in rent and which the tenant puts in their own name. List them individually rather than writing "utilities".
- Occupancy. Who may live there, guest limits, and whether subletting is allowed.
- Pets. The full policy: species, number, weight, any deposit, fee or pet rent, each as a separate figure.
- Maintenance and repairs. What the landlord fixes, what the tenant handles, how to report a problem, and the response expectation for an emergency.
- Entry. Notice required before the landlord enters, and the permitted reasons. Notice periods are set by state law, commonly 24 or 48 hours.
- Alterations. Painting, mounting a television, changing locks, installing an air conditioner.
- Insurance. Whether renter's insurance is required and what minimum liability cover.
- Condition at move-in. Reference an attached inventory or condition report signed by both parties. This is the single most useful attachment a lease can have.
- Ending early. What a tenant must do to break the lease and what it costs, including any obligation on the landlord to re-let.
- Notices. The email and postal address for formal notices, for both sides.
Disclosures that vary by state
Some disclosures are federal and apply everywhere. The lead-based paint disclosure and the EPA pamphlet are required for target housing built before 1978, in every state, with no exceptions worth relying on.
Beyond that it is local, and the list is long. Depending on where the property is, you may need to disclose bed bug history, mould, flooding history, the presence of a shared utility meter, the name and address of the owner or an authorised agent, where the security deposit is held and whether it earns interest, rent control or rent stabilisation status, smoking policy, radon, methamphetamine contamination history, or the identity of the property manager.
Do not guess at this from a template you downloaded. Check your state's landlord-tenant statute and your city's rules, or have a local lawyer confirm the disclosure list once. It is a one-off cost that protects every lease you sign afterwards.
Clauses that cause the most disputes
Four areas produce most of the arguments, and all four are avoidable with specific wording:
- "Normal wear and tear." Everyone agrees the tenant is not liable for it and nobody agrees what it is. A signed move-in condition report with photographs settles this in advance and is worth more than any clause.
- Deposit deductions. Itemise them, keep receipts, and meet your state's deadline. Missing the deadline can forfeit the right to deduct at all, and in some states triggers a penalty.
- Landlord entry. Write the notice period and the reasons explicitly, then follow them. Entry disputes escalate faster than money disputes.
- Yard and exterior maintenance. In houses and townhomes, say who mows, who clears snow and who maintains the garden, in the lease. See the townhome guide for how often this is left vague.
And one thing to leave out: clauses that waive rights a tenant cannot legally waive. A clause waiving the right to a habitable dwelling, or to statutory notice, is generally unenforceable, and including it can invalidate more than the clause itself in some states.
Signing it online
For an electronic signature to hold up, three things need to be true. The signer must intend to sign, must consent to doing business electronically, and must receive a copy they can keep. Any reputable e-signature service handles all three, and keeps an audit trail of when each party signed and from where.
Practical points that matter more than the technology: send the lease as a locked document rather than an editable file, get every adult occupant to sign rather than one person on behalf of the household, attach the condition report and the disclosures to the same envelope so they are part of the signed record, and store the countersigned copy somewhere that is not only your email.
Before you send it
- Do the rent, deposit, term, start date, utilities, parking and pet terms match the listing exactly?
- Is every adult occupant named?
- Are all required disclosures attached, including lead paint if the building predates 1978?
- Is the condition report attached and dated?
- Are the late fee, deposit amount and entry notice all within your state's limits?
- Is there a clear address for notices, for both sides?
- Has a lawyer in your state reviewed this template at least once?
What RentPlace does and does not do
RentPlace is the listing and inquiry layer. It captures the facts of the unit as structured fields and collects each applicant's answers to your screening questions in a consistent form, which makes drafting an accurate lease considerably easier because the numbers are already written down in one place.
It does not generate or execute leases, it is not a law firm, and nothing on this site is legal advice. Pair it with a lease your own lawyer has reviewed. See how listing works, or how to screen tenants consistently for the step that comes before the lease.