At Lording the Land, there is an excellent post that breaks down a lease.  I still know some landlords that are operating with verbal leases.  Can you believe it? 

Just as important as the lease itself is making sure that your tenants understand it.  The landlord system that I’ve implemented with my property managers says that they must read the pertinent points of the lease out loud to the tenant at lease signing.  This is so powerful because you give your tenant double exposure and double retention regarding their agreement - through sight AND sound.  Most tenants don’t read the lease word for word when they sign it.  They just skim it over, which means they go into their residency unaware of some of what is expected of them.  Future problems should be expected in this case.

I’m also an advocate of amending your lease with a set of house rules.  This keeps the legal terms and conditions separate from the behavioral expectations.  You may spend some bucks and have an attorney draft or review a great lease, and once you do that you’re not likely to want to tinker with it much.  But if you keep your house rules off onto an addendum, you can add to and change these as situations arise and as you learn more about your market, building, and expenses. 

You can download a sample lease that you can use or pull ideas from HERE.