I have rented a house in CA for 2 years. 1 year after the rent started I got an offer to relocate and I gave the landlord a notice that I might ask to leave the house before the end of the contract. Two weeks after the email I have sent the landlord my offered contract oversea was canceled. When I contacted the landlord to share the news with him he told me that he already had a signed contract with a new family starting on September 1st.

I would like to stay in the house till the end of my original contract. What are my rights?
Even if the landlord will ask me to move out I would like to have as much time as possible to look for other alternatives.

Thanks!

excon

Hello l:

Very interesting question. From a legal perspective, it's going to turn on whether the email you sent constitutes notice that you're breaching the contract.

I think it does even though you hedged by using the word "might". The landlord isn't required to hedge along with you. His job is to make sure his place is rented. He also has an obligation to YOU to mitigate your damages by renting AS SOON AS HE CAN. He did, thereby saving you from having to pay the balance of the lease.

But, that's how a JUDGE might view it, IF one or the other of you sues. Hopefully, it won't get that far. I think you have to move. Since you didn't give him a date, he picked one. I think you have to go by Sept 1, and leave the place ready for the new tenant to move in.

If you don't move by then, and he loses the tenant, or gets SUED by the new tenant because it wasn't ready, you'll be liable.

If you try to stay, he's going to be in trouble with his new tenants in any case, so that's not going to work for you.

No Sir. I think you made your bed, and your landlord is making you lie in it. In my view, if you don't leave by Sept 1, it's gonna cost you a bundle.

excon