If I live in a house and the lease expires what are my legal rights?

You have no legal rights. If the owner wants to continue leasing the house to you, you are in luck, if they don’t, you have to move.

When does your lease expire? In how many days, weeks, months? I believe if your lease expires and the landlord doesn’t have you sign another lease or require that you leave you become a month to month tenant and your legal rights would be set by the laws of your state, municipality, etc. I believe most jurisdictions would require a 30 days notice to get you out under a month to month tenancy but it varies. Best thing to do would be to talk to your landlord. Have you done that?

@Bretbocook
What does your lease say? Sometimes you have the answer, but don’t know it. There maybe a renewal paragraph.

If you’ve been a good tenant, paid your rent on time, kept the property up, not caused complaints from the neighbors, then your landlord should renew your lease, unless they have other plans for the property. Sometimes a lease renewal is accompanied by an increase in rent.

We just went from two years on a lease to month-to-month. They are just happy to have trusted people that are proven to pay. 30 days and we can bail. That is actually the plan. Your best bet is to actually call them. Seriously, people don’t want to rent right now and renters will bend over backwards to keep you.

And you best bet is your words and not your lawyers words. Once you start talking about my legal rights they will do what they can to get you out.

If your lease term ends and you are still in the house, legally the lease has turned into a month to month lease if you paid your rent monthly by the terms of the lease. This is common property law and still in force in the states in which I am familiar with property law. Either you or the landlord can end the lease with notice. The lease term ending does not give you the right to stay in possession of the property without paying rent. This is my personal opinion, not legal advice.

The wording of the question seems strange to me, especially with no additional detail.

Are you in some kind of dispute with the landlord? Is he planning to put someone else in the house after your lease expires (and you leave)? Is he selling the place, or what?

For most people the question of what to do after a lease expires is a binary answer:
1. Renew the lease and live there happily-for-at-least-a-year after.
or
2. Look for a new place and move. (And this choice can involve a whole new decision tree: rent or buy? etc.)

The other option that many leases allow (and it’s written into the lease in most cases) is to make no decision and continue living there on a month-to-month basis as others have already responded.

Are there details missing that would lead us to answers more suited to your case?

Depends on your state. In FL, it becomes a month to month lease, and you are still expected to pay on time. Either of you, tenant or landord, can give the other 15 days written notice that you are moving out or being asked to leave. I am assuming you want to stay on the property? You should at minimum be in verbal contact with your landlord, so you both know what each others expectations. Also, on your current lease it probably says something like you are to inform your landlord within 60 days of the end of the lease if you plan to stay, or renew your lease, etc.

If you aren’t already in a dispute with your landlord, I wouldn’t bring up legal rights when talking to him/her. Once you do, the situation becomes a lot more aggressive.

Otherwise… I’m sure its a state law thing and also depends heavily on what your current/old lease says. Go through that first.

I have to agree with @CyanoticWasp and @johnpowell, @roundsquare and @perspicacious on this one. Unless there are some other issues here it seems a little premature to ask about your legal rights unless maybe this is your first apartment and the first time you’ve ever had a lease expire; but, if you haven’t already discussed renewing your lease with your landlord I wouldn’t start the conversation with a discussion of your legal rights, it’s just not necessary at that point and may make you look like a bit of a troublemaker.

That’s why I asked if you had talked to your landlord. That’s generally the procedure when your lease is about to expire. You contact your landlord and talk to him or her about renewing your lease. Your landlord can choose to let you renew your lease as is, or can change the terms at that point and offer you a new lease under the new terms. The change in terms could involve a rent increase, maybe the duration of the lease (like asking you to sign a 6 month lease or a 2 year lease, e.g.), change in pet policy, etc. Then you either agree to the new terms and sign the lease or not.

At that point if the landlord doesn’t want you there anymore he or she can give you whatever notice is required by the landlord tenant laws in your area and you have to go. If your lease expires without either you or your landlord doing anything about it, as every one has said you transition to a month-to-month tenancy and your rights and your landlords rights are governed by landlord tenant law regarding month-to-month tenancy in your state or area.

Under that kind of tenancy you can continue to live there, as long as you pay your rent, etc, until either you want to move or your landlord wants you to move. You can, upon giving the required notice can move out whenever you want; your landlord, giving the required notice, can ask you to move out anytime he or she wants you to.

And maybe this goes without saying because it’s just common sense (but sometimes I don’t know when to shut up) and I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know what the laws are regarding whether or not you still legally bound by any of the specific terms of your lease, but whether you are or not, you will still want to comply with them. Say you’re renting a house and your lease expressly prohibited you from having pets and required you to mow the lawn. Going to a month-to-month tenancy doesn’t mean it’s time to go: “Wee! I can finally get a dog and stop mowing the lawn! Yea!” Because that’s going to give your landlord a pretty good reason to want you to leave and you’re probably not going to get your security deposit back when he find he has to replace the dog poop carpet. :-)

You can most likely find information online about the particular tenant’s rights available to you – but if you pay rent for the month and the landlord accepts after the end of the term of the lease (the landlord accepts simply by cashing the check) then it’s most likely that you have a month-to-month tenancy, which either side can terminate on a months notice (this is the bare minimum).