The usual situation is that you leave, but other potential tenants have expressed interest in renting your space because you have placed an ad on Craig`s list or other and you have their requests that you forward to the landlord. The landlord thinks they will have your payment guaranteed, so they will NOT try to minimize their losses and accept any of your proposed replacements. Instead, it will « test the market, » which means increasing the advertised rent to see if people will pay more for its units. It may say that your proposed tenants did not have a high credit score or wanted to pay less than you, and they refuse. However, according to section 1951.2, his plan backfires because you are safe to the extent that one of your potential successors was willing to pay something. A replacement with terrible credit and a bad rental history that is only willing to pay $100 less than you were would be rejected by your landlord, but since the landlord could have avoided losing everything but $100 a month by selecting that tenant, you only owe that $100 per month difference for the remaining months of your lease. It is legitimate to charge an early cancellation fee, however, it is not advisable to confiscate the deposit and use it as rent. They collected the depot to make unit repairs caused by the tenant`s occupation beyond the elimination of normal wear and tear. If you use that money for rent, you no longer have the funds to make the repairs you would normally need when a tenant moves. As always, it depends. Your relationship with your tenants and your reputation as a landlord are just as important as your bottom line.
You can`t make them stay, but you can remind them of their obligations under the lease to keep them financially responsible until you fill the housing. A rock-solid lease will help you and ensure you get compensated if tenants want to leave. In addition, consult a lawyer whenever you believe that your rights and obligations described in the original lease may change and avoid the case of a lawsuit (brought by you or the tenant). If you do not have a legal reason after reviewing the above legal reasons, you will need to « break » your lease. It is not a legal term, but it distinguishes this situation where you do not have the legal right to do so from the above situations where you legally terminate your lease. In this case, your main goal is to minimize your losses. The Civil Code 1951.2 states that if you leave, you will have to pay the rent for the rest of the rental period, MINUS what you can prove that the landlord could have avoided losing. The landlord also has a usual duty to minimize their losses [« mitigate the damage »]. Therefore, you minimize YOUR losses in part by trying to minimize the OWNER`s LOSSES and in part protect your interest in the deposit that the owner wants to apply. If you do this correctly, the owner could end up owing you money. The tenant usually needs to get a court order for the landlord to stop the behavior. If the landlord violates the court order and refuses to stop the behaviour, the tenant can announce that he or she will end the lease.
If the tenant has written you a notice of termination of the lease, keep it in the file. If the tenant left without warning, enter a short note about when you discovered the abandoned property and the steps you took to contact the tenant. Write down all the times, dates, phone numbers, and notes of all the phone calls you have with the tenant. Keep all this information and any future correspondence in your file. You will need it when you attend a court hearing to recover the money owed. The landlord must present this option to the tenant at the time of signing the lease. The tenant can then decide whether he wants to accept it or not. If the tenant refuses to accept, the law says that he should not be refused the rental on this basis. .