My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: Michigan
I own a property in the state of Michigan that I rented out to tenants last year starting in July 2013. The lease is now up and they want to sign another year lease going into 2015.
Last year I went through a real estate agent who initially found my renters. At the time they did all the leg work, marketing, screening applicants, showing the house etc. For her services we were charged a month’s rent which was then split between the renter’s agent and my agent.
My hang-up here really is that my agent said she could re-issue the initial contract, set new dates etc. and have both parties sign again but she would then charge me another month’s rent to do this, which is $1700! I figure the work has been done already. She's literally just pulling up the old contract, changing dates and such then charging me that $1700 dollars to do this.
So my question is, do I still need to go through my agent to draw up another lease contract? I don't see why I couldn't just create my own lease contract with similar lease elements in it from the existing contract that was signed last year and have both the renters and myself sign it again.
Am I missing something here? Do I really need to go through the agent to do this? Wouldn’t this still be a binding contract under the law?
Thanks in advance for any thoughts and advice.

