When renting a home, the contract signing It is something that usually generates doubts among landlords and tenants, especially when deciding what clauses should be included in it. It must be taken into account that despite what the parties agree to, not all of them are mandatory and if they are contrary to the law, they do not have to be complied with.
This has been clarified by the rental expert lawyer, Alberto Sánchez, through his social networks Legally in which he has warned of the consequences that including void clauses in rental contracts.
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The expert assures that the presence of invalid clauses is a general problem in rental contracts. “There is not a single day that I do not see a housing rental contract with void clauses,” he says.
Neither the owner is protected nor the tenant must comply
Sánchez insists that these types of clauses not only lack legal validity, but also generate a false sense of security in owners and confusion in tenants.
As he explains, the problem affects both the landlord and the tenant: “On the one hand, the owner thinks that he is protected with a clause that is not going to be applied. And, on the other hand, the tenant thinks that he has to comply with a clause that is completely null, that goes against the law and that he does not have to comply with it,” says the lawyer.
The specialist recommends that both parties always review contracts before signing them, preferably with the help of a professional. As he explains, many of these clauses are included due to ignorance or copying old models without updating them in accordance with current legislation.
“A prior review can avoid judicial conflicts, claims and, above all, false beliefs about rights and obligations that do not really exist,” he says.
An example of a void clause in a rental contract
In his video, the lawyer responds to the question of a user of the social network TikTok in which he poses the following: “in my case the owner makes me sign a contract and gives me very rigid clauses such as, for example, that I have one month to leave if he sells the apartment.”
Sánchez mentions that terminating the rental contract in the event of the sale of the home is totally illegal. “If you have a clause that says that the sale extinguishes the rental, even if that is the case, it is completely null. It goes against article 14 of the Urban Leases Law,” he explains.
The cited article establishes that, “the purchaser of a rented home will be subrogated to the rights and obligations of the lessor during the first five years of the contract, or seven years if the previous lessor was a legal entity.” Therefore, the tenant cannot be evicted due to the sale of the property, despite what the contract indicates.