Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

Re: Legal reason to break a lease

Mr. Shers has given you a thorough and competent answer.

I have collaborated with him on several matters, and find him a very competent and able attorney. Also, his fee is more than reasonable. If I were you, I would take him up on his offer.

Re: Legal reason to break a lease

If a party to a contract is mislead as to an essential term of the contract by the other party, which should reasonably know that the first person relied to his detriment upon that misleading information, the contract can be voided. Since they did not give you an assigned parking space, it is not entirely clear that you were mislead, especially if you had seen that there was a parking problem before you moved in. Did you ask them about parking; did you see that there might be a problem?

I assume that the lease contract was entirely written by the owner and you did not write any of the terms. The writer on the contract has any thing that is ambigious read against them. If the contract only says you must pay a special termination fee and give 30 days notice, and especially if they accepted your notice and said nothing until you were about to move out about signing any additional forms [which means the forms would probably be considered too minor to prevent the termination of the lease], you probably would be found to fill out the terms of ending the lease and would have no further responsibility for the lease. I do not understand why you apparently remained there for several months after giving notice?

I would demand to speak to the owner, not the manager who is unlikely to admit his mistake, pointing out that if they refuse to go along with what appears to be the correct viewpoint, that the lease has been terminated, the best he can expect to happen in any suit against you is the judge finding that the lease is valid but the owner must mitigate his damages so he would be given about one month to find a new tenant, so if you give 30 days notice the owner may get nothing more from the Court.

If the owner refuses to give in, it might be worth the few hundred dollars to get an attorney to review all the facts and written agreements and then write a short, strong letter to the owner. Even if the owner does not accept your position or realize it is cheaper for him in the long run to go along with you, if he decides to sue and goes to an attorney, the attorney will tell him he has a weak case. That will not prevent him from giving a prospective new unit owner a bad recommendation, so you need him to agree not to say anything negative [just say that there was a disagreement as to the parking and you exericed the early terminiation agreement]or tell the person you wnat to rent from what happened.

If you really need to, I could review the documents and facts and prepare such a letter, at $100 per hour. Most attorney should be able to do a satisfactory job for you and it is normally better to hire a local attorney.