The lease option I am familiar with does not eliminate repairs. It's simply a normal rental agreement for a period of x-months (12 to 24 being somewhat typical), but there is also an option contract to purchase the dwelling after the lease expires, and in exchange for that you get a hefty down payment ($2000 - $4000, depending on house price). Otherwise, you are still the land lord and are required to makes repairs as needed. It also makes sense to make repairs yourself, as I hear over 95% of these lease options NEVER go thru to closing, so odds are you are going to get the property back with a lot of undone maintenance if you leave it to the tenant.
Same goes for any lease, with or without a purchase options. Few tenants actually do any maintenance they are supposed to do. Protect your investment and do it yourself (or hire it done). Bill tenants promptly for damages not due to normal wear and tear.
What you might be thinking of is RTO (rent to own), which is similar to a lease option but it appears common to word the contract to put the burden of repairs on the tenants, and also a portion of their higher than usual monthly rent gets credited towards the purchase price. Brad 20K does a lot of those, so perhaps he'll chime in and give us the skinny on how that works.
--108.250.xxx.xxx
lease options (by Woody [OK]) Nov 19, 2012 6:12 AM
lease options (by S i d [MO]) Nov 19, 2012 6:34 AM