What Is a Lease Rider?

A lease rider is a clause added to a lease. Lease riders are usually added to leases once a leaser experiences an situation not covered in the original lease. Sometimes lease riders are a condition of lease renewals and are simply intended to provide tenants with updates in the conditions of lease since they signed their original.

Lease riders protect lesser, as well as lessees. In some instances, they are a legal requirement, especially in the case of tenants are grandfathered or protected by certain laws. Particularly in property leases, situations sometimes arise that, without the addition of a lease rider, put the lesser at risk of liability. An example of this is the presence of lead paint or asbestos in a property. These substances have been determined to considerable and sometimes deadly long-term medical effects. Although a lesser may not have placed these in a property, the fact that they exist in the property make the lesser subject to liability for any medical conditions that may arise within tenants unless a lease rider is added to the lease that makes the tenant aware of the presence of these substances and releases the lesser from liability from any medical conditions that result because of them.