As a landlord, is it legally binding if I send my tenants an email stating that I will be changing the lease?

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Question

As a landlord, is it legally binding if I send my tenants an email stating that I will be changing the lease?

Anonymous · Sep 7, 2017 · 0 views

Business

I'm a landlord. I was considering selling the home that I was renting to tenants. I sent the tenants an email stating so. As a result of my email, the tenants vacated the property within a few weeks, and they still had 6 months before their lease was to end. The Landlord-Tenant Code states there are many ways to serve notice, but it does not list an email as one of them. I'm suing the tenants for breaking the lease 6 months prematurely. Is my email to them legally binding, since it wasn't signed by me, nor is it a legal form of service according to the Code?

Answer 1

If you are going to be a landlord in Delaware, you need to know the code very well AND have a regular attorney who knows that area of the law; if you make one little mistake, you can end up owing the tenant a LOT of money. The code is very tenant-friendly. That being said and without knowing all the details, you would not have been "changing the lease" even if you sold the property. The new owners would have been bound to honor the lease. If you want to sue the tenants, get a landlord-tenant attorney on board before attempting to file suit. (See above about the code being very tenant-friendly.) Also, you have a duty to mitigate your damages so you need to look for new tenants.
I never advise people to be landlords here unless they are willing to invest a lot of time into learning the code very, very well. It typically only makes sense if you have multiple properties for rent and/or use a good property management company.

As a landlord, is it legally binding if I send my tenants an email stating that I will be changing the lease?

1 Attorney Answer

Robert Collins