Free Pennsylvania Lease Renewal Agreement
Pennsylvania’s notice rules sit in an Act rather than a code chapter. The end of a term is one of three circumstances in which a landlord may give notice to remove — and the subsection excludes a mobile home space. The period runs fifteen days from service for a term of a year or less and thirty for a longer one, though § 501(e) lets a lease shorten or waive it. No general reason has to be given — but § 205 forbids nonrenewing a residential lease over a tenants’ organization.
A lease renewal is an agreement to carry an existing tenancy into a further term. In Pennsylvania whether one is available is a matter of contract — the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951 gives no tenant a right to renew, so the lease decides. What the Act supplies is the notice a landlord gives when repossessing, and it is worth reading because the end of a term is one of the three circumstances the section lists. It also supplies two limits that cut the other way: § 205 forbids nonrenewing a residential unit lease over participation in a tenants’ organization, and § 511.1(b) caps the deposit on any renewal of the original lease at one month’s rent.
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Non-renewal is one of three grounds in § 501 — and § 205 is the limit
Section 501(a) provides, in full: “A landlord desirous of repossessing real property from a tenant except real property which is a mobile home space as defined in the act of November 24, 1976 (P.L.1176, No.261), known as the ‘Mobile Home Park Rights Act,’ may notify, in writing, the tenant to remove from the same at the expiration of the time specified in the notice under the following circumstances, namely, (1) Upon the termination of a term of the tenant, (2) or upon forfeiture of the lease for breach of its conditions, (3) or upon the failure of the tenant, upon demand, to satisfy any rent reserved and due.” Note: two things in that sentence are easy to lose. The first is the exclusion of a mobile home space, which sits in the middle of the subsection and takes an entire class of tenancy out of the mechanism described on this page. The second is that the end of a term is simply one of the three listed circumstances — the statute presents them as an undifferentiated enumeration introduced by “namely”, so nothing turns on which is printed first. Pennsylvania does not, as a general matter, require a landlord to justify a non-renewal; it is an ordinary listed ground, sitting alongside breach and non-payment. But that is a general rule with a statutory exception. § 205 provides: “No individual unit lease on residential property shall be terminated or nonrenewed on the basis of the participation of any tenant or member of the tenant’s family in a tenants’ organization or association.” That section names non-renewal expressly, applies only to residential property, and means the correct statement is no general justification is required, not any reason will do.
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Pennsylvania lease renewal at a glance
Term of one year or less, or indeterminate
Remove within 15 days of service
Term of more than one year
Within 30 days of service
If the lease so provides
The notice may be shortened or waived – § 501(e)
Does a reason have to be given?
The Act sets no general cause requirement – but § 205 bars nonrenewal over a tenants’ organization
How long the notice has to be
Section 501(b) sets the periods by reference to the length of the lease: “Except as provided for in subsection (c), in case of the expiration of a term or of a forfeiture for breach of the conditions of the lease where the lease is for any term of one year or less or for an indeterminate time, the notice shall specify that the tenant shall remove within fifteen days from the date of service thereof, and when the lease is for more than one year, then within thirty days from the date of service thereof.” Where the tenant fails, upon demand, to satisfy rent reserved and due, the notice specifies removal within ten days from the date of the service thereof. Note: three things travel with this. The periods run from the date of service, not backwards from the end of the term. They are subject to § 501(c), which gives a mobile home park tenant thirty days where the lease is for less than a year or an indeterminate time and three months where it is for one year or more — and whose second sentence sets a seasonal rent-default notice: “In case of failure of the tenant, upon demand, to satisfy any rent reserved and due, the notice, if given on or after April first and before September first, shall specify that the tenant shall remove within fifteen days from the date of the service thereof, and if given on or after September first and before April first, then within thirty days from the date of the service thereof.” And ten days is not a single rule: § 501(d) provides that “In case of termination due to the provisions of section 505-A, the notice shall specify that the tenant shall remove within ten days fr