Proper Handling for Phoenix Non-Lease Renewal Notices
By Lisa Borchard Wednesday, July 13, 2016
With Arizona residential leases for your Phoenix investment property, the landlord may elect to not renew a resident's lease at any time and for almost any reason (except if motivated by discriminatory or retaliatory intent).
The ability to not renew comes from two areas: the lease contract and the Arizona Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (A.R.S. §§ 33-1301 et sequitur). Nearly all Phoenix residential lease contracts contain provisions that indicate that the lease continues on a month-to-month basis following the passing of the last day of the term if the lease is not otherwise terminated. Additionally, the lease usually contains verbiage that describes how far in advance a party to the contract must issue notice in order to avoid the month-to-month continuation. If the notice language is missing from the lease, A.R.S. § 33-1375 supplies the time frame of 30 days for contracts where rent is paid monthly.
Provided that you are issuing your notice more than the contractually-mandated (or statutorily-described, if the provision is lacking) minimum number of days in advance, you may do so at any time. However it is best to serve the notice close to the lease end date as tenant's sometimes decide not to pay rent once served. If your lease contains a requirement for advance notice of non-renewal that is greater than thirty days, you cannot enforce it once the lease becomes month-to-month. A resident has a statutory right to issue notice thirty days in advance to avoid future month-to-month periods once the lease carries over on a month-to-month basis, and this right supersedes the contract for this limited purpose. For example, if the lease expired on June 20 and neither resident nor landlord acted (renewal or non-renewal) prior to that date, the resident may issue a non-renewal notice on June 21 for July 31, regardless of whether your lease has a 30, 45, or 60-day notice requirement. However, notice issued by the resident on June 19 (i.e., one day before this hypothetical lease expired) is still subject to the contract's notice provision.
If you cannot hand-deliver the non-renewal notice to the resident (or another individual who is occupying the apartment), you must send it via certified U.S. mail. Certified mailing adds five days to the calculus for the time - which means that these notices must be mailed no fewer than an additional five days beyond the minimum notice requirements. For a 30-day notice, for example, the certified mail must be issued no fewer than thirty-five days before the expiration of the lease or the date upon which the next month-to-month period starts. The failure to include this additional time will cause your notices to fail.
If you have questions about issuing the right notice or the time frame in which you may issue it, or for any landlord-tenant issue that arises, please do not hesitate to contact your property managers at RPMWV Phoenix who are always ready to assist you.
