In this video, Peter Lohmann advises landlords to explicitly specify which appliances and items belong to the property owner versus the tenant within the lease agreement. He points out that many standard lease templates omit this detail, which can lead to disputes when tenants move out and attempt to take appliances. Lohmann recommends adding a clear, itemized table—often copied from Excel—to list each appliance and its ownership status. He explains that this practice protects owners from losing appliances or being left with non‑functional items, and also helps tenants understand what they must remove upon vacating. The overall message is a practical, straightforward step landlords can take to avoid costly misunderstandings.
Chapters
So when it comes to your lease agreement, there's a few really important considerations that you should have as a landlord. And one of them that often gets overlooked is who actually owns what in the apartment or rental home, and is that clearly delineated in your lease? So when you rent your home or apartment to a prospective tenant, It may be obvious to you that the refrigerator and the range and the dishwasher are provided by you, the owner, and are to stay with the house. But you might be surprised to find that many default lease templates that you find a spot for you to clearly state that. So we encourage any landlords, and of course we have this in our standard lease, that all the appliances should be specifically outlined in the lease agreement. And noted as to who owns what. And it moves out and they take the refrigerator as they're backing up with the moving truck. You can actually say, hey, no, actually, you know, right here you signed that we actually do own that refrigerator. And then conversely, you know, some property owners prefer to provide properties without appliances in them for one reason or another. And again, you want to show that the refrigerator and the range actually do belong to the tenant and you want them to take them when they leave. So they're not leaving, you know, nonfunctional appliances at your property. So it's easy to overlook. And again, most of the standard lease templates don't have this by default. It's actually really, really important to protect yourself as the property owner by clearly showing that in your lease. And we have it. We have just a nice simple table that we copied and pasted out of Excel that you can, you know, sort of update as you're completing the lease for each individual unit. Very straightforward to do something, something similar for your own lease. I hope that's helpful.
