Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: condition

I think you are analyzing your situation under the wrong topic heading if you are into books that talk in terms of real covenants and equitable servitudes.

Your problem is that many legal terms have two or more meanings depending upon the context. Things such as "conditions" and "covenants" when written into instruments affecting title or creating limitations on the use of land, and thus are intended to "run with the land" are inherently different from the terms of an ordinary contract, which may also contain provisions which are referred to as "conditions" or "covenants" as well as "terms" "provisions" and other monickers. An example is that some business-sale contracts contain the seller's "covenant not to compete" with the buyer.

A residential real-property lease is sort of a hybrid between a contract and an instrument conveying an estate in real property. In recent years, there has been a trend to treat them more as contracts and less as conveyances.

So, it's likely that there is a provision, maybe more than one, written into the lease between the landlord and the original tenant, which is called a "condition." Black's Law Dictionary says a condition is "A future and uncertain event upon the happening of which is made to depend the existence of an obligation....." For example, "If the tenant paints the apartment, landlord will reimburse the cost of the paint." That is a contract condition.

As a second lessee, you may be a subtenant, an assignee of the first tenant, or perhaps only the next tenant after the prior lease expired or was rescinded. Your rights and obligations will differ under each of these scenarios. If you are a subtenant, your obligations are to the prime tenant and your rights are whatever the prime tenant gave you, but in no case greater than the prime tenant herself had. If you are an assignee, you have taken the original tenant's place for the balance of the lease term. If you are a follow-on tenant, the prior lease doesn't affect you at all.