Could I send a notice to vacate 30 days before the end of the lease?
Though this is dependant on the specific laws in your jurisdiction, generally, your recourse is somewhat limited and will depend on whether there was a lease in place or whether it was a month-to-month tenancy.If there was a lease in place, the tenant is responsible for the rent until the lease expires or you rent out the apartment (keep in mind that most jurisdictions will make you mitigate damages so you will need to prove that you tried to rent out the apartment as soon as you could).If it was a month-to-month tenancy, your damages would be a full month’s rent, or, the pro-rated rent for the time the apartment was empty if it was less than a month (ex. if the tenant moves out on 3/30 without notice and you are able to rent out the apartment on 4/15, you would be able to sue for unpaid rent for the period that the apartment was empty).The caveat here is that unless the security deposit covers your losses, you will have to sue for the money and then collect.
Is a landlord in CA entitled to a 30 day notice to vacate after a lease expires? My landlord has given me an offer (7.5% increase) to renew 13 days to the the end of my lease. I would like to vacate at the end of my lease.
If this is California, and not Canada (your “CA” is unclear), 13 days is insufficient notice for a rent increase.Your landlord must give you 30 days notice if you pay rent monthly, and the increase is 10% or less, or 60 days notice if it’s more than 10%.If you intend to not renew the lease, you are required, after the expiration of the lease, to give the landlord 30 days written notice of your intent to vacate, again: this assumes you pay rent monthly.Unless there are additional lease terms, California law provides that falling off the end of a lease will automatically convert you to a month-to-month tenant.Be aware that a 7.5% increase is actually very reasonable for most locations in California, with the exception of specific rent control regions, there’s no upper limit on rent increases.
Is it true that tenants who pay rent electronically can continue to just pay electronically and stay in the apartment after their lease expires even though they have been served a formal notice to vacate at the expiration date of the lease?
The problem arises when you cannot refuse the electronic payment before it is deposited in your account and withdrawn from the tenants account.In California law, this can:Establish a month-to-month tenancy after the end of a lease, with no intent on the part of the landlord to extend such an offer, and even if the lease explicitly disallows such conversionIf an eviction proceeding is in progress, it can halt the eviction proceeding and cause the landlord to have to start the process over, since the landlord is prohibited by law from accepting rent — even rent owed by a tenant occupying a property after a Notice To Quit — once an eviction proceeding starts, acceptance equals termination of the proceedingImply forgiveness of fees owed, acceptance of a partial payment which includes a full payment of rent owed, and no or only partial payment of fees owed is tacit forgivenessImply acceptance of a tacit renegotiation of the rent amount to the previous rent amount, following a rent increase, this is a variation on a partial payment, but on a month-to-month can restart the 30/60 rent increase notice clock, and on an automatic yearly renewal, can lock in the old rent amount for another yearOther jurisdictions have similar tenant-favoring laws.It should be noted that some Canadian banks have a system which allows an electronic payment requiring explicit franking.In other words, an email is sent with a franking code, and you can accept or reject the payment on a payment-by-payment basis.This prevents the removal of funds from the tenant’s account, or insertion of the funds in the landlord’s account, without an explicit step which requires human intermediation.Because the funds do not change hands without this explicit step, it does not trigger acceptance on the part of the landlord.The limitations on such a system is that the landlord and the tenant must have a bank in common, and the bank must offer this explicit verification step.To my knowledge, no U.S. banks allow this sort of thing, or are set up to offer it, and if they did, it would not work between banks, like the Canadian system, both parties would need accounts with the same institution.Because of these issues, most landlords will not accept electronic or credit card payments for rent.Credit cards in the U.S. have the additional problem that the transaction fee is assed to the merchant, rather than the person paying, about the only places that have separate “cash price”/”credit card price” are gas stations.It’s unlikely for U.S. banks to offer the service fee on the customer side of the transaction — that’s just not how credit cards work, in the U.S. — and it’s similarly unlikely that they would offer a “no deposit means no withdrawal” transaction escrow service, since if the transaction is not completed, they’ve spent the money staging the transaction, but not collected their service fee — that’s the only way they make money.While you can do something similar with PayPal — assuming you adjust the rent upward for credit card tenants, which has its own set of problems in California — it doesn’t avoid the withdrawl from the tenants account, even if the landlord elects to decline payment.In that case, the tenant could rightly argue in court that the payment was accepted on the landlord’s behalf, by PayPal, as the landlord’s agent.For the original reason, and these additional reasons, I do not accept credit card or electronic payments.
A tenant violated the lease agreement so I gave them a 30-day vacate notice before the lease expired, but they are not moving out and not paying rent either. What can I do?
My advice - offer them $500 to leave within two weeks. This will cost you the least.They could assert tenants’ rights and force you to go to court to get an eviction. This will take a lot of time and then arranging for the Sheriff to order them out will take even longer. In the meantime they’ll be doing their best to trash the place and cost you as much as possible.You can sue them in court for damages and waste even more of your time and money. You’ll eventually win and get a judgement against them. Then you have to schedule more hearings and demand they turn over a list of all accounts and assets. They won’t and you’ll be back in court. If they’re really stupid, they might land in the county jail for contempt and then be fired and have no money to pay you back anyhow. If not, then you might eventually be allowed to garnish their wages. The monthly payments will stretch on for a long time, and they’ll probably miss some. Then you’ll have to go back to court.After years of being shackled to these people, you’ll eventually get back a fraction of what they cost you. In the meantime they will take every opportunity to mess with you and cost you money. You’ll spend years with the people you like least.Or you offer them $500 to leave in two weeks and appreciate all the money, time and frustration you never spent.But if you like lawyers, missed work, and beating your head against the wall, go for the legal option.
How can I get my name off of a month-to-month co-tenant lease? Three out of four tenants have vacated the property and given notice to the landlord, but the landlord refuses to take our name off of the lease. This is a rent controlled area.
Give him 30 days registered letter and say see ya. After you do that it ceases to be a lease so whether or not he wants to he cant have a lease full of people who have gone with notice and turned in the key remember to give keys back ….if its rent controlled which i am not familar ' i can't see it being hard at all to get another person in… not your problem though, notice , keys gone.
How many days before the rental lease expires? Does the landlord have to give notice of lease renewal in California?
I am not sure if it is a commercial property but if it is a residential rental property it automatically converts to a month-to-month contract so to answer your question the landlord doesn't have to give any notice to renew a lease if terms don't change. The rental would continue under same terms. If however they do want you to sign a new lease and are increasing rent, they have to give 30 days notice of any term changes
What happens if a room partner wants to break lease and move out without much prior notice? How it will impact other people in lease?
This assumes all three are on the lease:Those who remain will have to pick up the slack and pay for the lease. Sometimes leaving room mates is unavoidable, but the one who leaves has an ethical financial responsibility to the 2 who remain and a legal one to the landlord.A court might determine after the fact that the legal responsibility applies to the 2 deserted room mates, too. One exception to this could be if the 2 who remain caused the 3rd to leave.Regardless, the landlord is not going to accept 2/3 of the rent and will evict the 2 remaining if they can’t pay the rent. He will then probably sue all 3 in court if the rent is not paid in full. So it is to the 3rd party’s advantage to do the right thing here.All three should try as hard as they can to find an eligible and agreeable room mate to take the 3rd’s place as soon as possible. And the 3rd should share in the rent expense until the new room mate is found.
