Free Missouri Lease Termination Letter Template

A Missouri lease termination letter is the written notice that ends a tenancy at will, a tenancy by sufferance, or any tenancy for less than one year under section 441.060 of the Revised Statutes. You need one whenever the arrangement carries no fixed end date. Missouri also treats many unwritten rentals as month-to-month, which pulls them under the same rule.

One month is the figure throughout, though four subsections divide up when it applies.

One Month, in Writing

Subsection 1 lets the person entitled to possession end a tenancy at will or by sufferance, or one for less than a year, by giving one month’s notice in writing to the person in possession, requiring them to vacate the premises. Statutory periods move over time, so read the current section before fixing a date.

Month-to-Month Tenancies

Subsection 4(1) covers the ordinary case. Either the landlord or the tenant may terminate a month-to-month tenancy by written notice stating that the tenancy shall terminate upon a periodic rent-paying date, on not less than one month.

Unwritten Rentals Become Month-to-Month

Subsection 3 catches arrangements nobody signed. Contracts for leasing, renting, or occupying houses, stores, shops, tenements, or other buildings in cities, towns, and villages that were not made in writing and signed by the parties or their agents count as tenancies from month to month, terminable by either party on one month’s written notice of intention to terminate.

Mobile Homes on Rented Land

Subsection 4(2) sets a longer period. Where a person owns a mobile home and leases the land or lot it sits on, a landlord ending a tenancy of less than one year gives written notice that the tenancy terminates not sooner than sixty days from the date the rent payment next becomes due, and a lease clause providing for earlier termination does not override that.

It is probably a month-to-month tenancy. Subsection 3 turns unsigned arrangements for houses and other buildings in cities, towns, and villages into tenancies from month to month by operation of the statute.

That conversion cuts both ways. It gives a tenant renting on a handshake the same one month’s written notice a signed month-to-month tenant would get, and it obliges that tenant to give the same notice back before leaving.

A Missouri lease termination letter needs one month and a rent-paying date.

1. Work out which subsection covers the tenancy.
2. Pick the periodic rent-paying date on which it should end.
3. Count back at least one month from that date.
4. Put the notice in writing and state that the recipient must vacate.
5. Deliver it and keep proof of the date.

Section 441.060 prescribes no form, though subsection 1 does describe what the notice has to do: require the person in possession to vacate the premises.

• The address of the property
• The names of both parties
• The periodic rent-paying date on which the tenancy terminates
• A clear statement requiring the recipient to vacate
• A forwarding address
• Signature and date

Mobile home situations deserve a second look before anything goes out. Because subsection 4(2) overrides a contrary lease clause, a landlord relying on an earlier termination date written into the agreement will find the statute’s sixty days applies instead. Time your Missouri lease termination letter around whichever subsection actually governs.