What is a verbal rental agreement?


Quick Answer

A verbal rental agreement is a lease agreement where the landlord and the tenant verbally agree to lease and rent a house respectively without any written agreement. This could be for a specific period of time such as a month or even a week.

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Full Answer

In most cases, this type of agreement is legally binding on both the landlord and the tenant. However, even though this is an oral agreement, the landlord must give the person renting the house a written statement that clearly states the name, the phone number and the street address of the landlord or agent managing the property.

According to University of Missouri, a verbal lease agreement that lasts more than one year is unenforceable and invalid. The one-year period in this case simply refers to the time when the agreement was made, not when the tenant first got possession of the property. The law does not allow the tenant to assign a lease interest without obtaining written consent from the property owner. If the tenant decides to assign the lease to someone else without the landlord’s permission, then the landlord reserves the right to nullify the agreement after giving a 10-day notice. However, this law does not prohibit the tenant from subletting the property. A person can do so if there is no valid and binding agreement that prohibits him from doing so.

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