Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

. No, but if your landlord doesn't want you on a month to month or you don't want to sign a years lease then you will have to move or be evicted. It is totally up to the landlord if you are not in a rent controlled area what terms they want to offer you once your lease is up.

Hope that helps and good luck.

If the landlord requires a lease and you don't sign, then you have no right to stay.

Assuming the "twelve-month rental agreement" as you call it was a twelve-month lease rather than a month-to-month rental agreement that happened to run for 12 months, it expired at the end of the specified term. When it expired, you automatically lost all your right to continued occupancy. You were better than a trespasser, because your original possession of the property was lawful, but not much better. No notices needed to be exchanged, although it is customary for a landlord to remind its tenant under a term lease that the lease is about to expire.

So, you and your landlord need to work out something to legalize your remaining in possession. It doesn't have to be another 12 month deal, but it has to be some kind of agreement.

Most leases say something about "holding over," which is the common term for tenants failing to vacate at or before the lease expiration. If yours doesn't, you are probably liable to the landlord for the current fair market rental value of the property, and perhaps additional damages if any are proven (such as the next lessee's inability to move in as scheduled).

If the landlord accepts rent from you after the expiration of your lease, Civil Code section 1945 applies, absent any other agreement, and you'd become a month-to-month tenant.