Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

Re: Breaking a housing lease

A lease is a binding contract which is not effected by your employment situation. Your ending the lease is a breach of the contract. The landlord can sue you for the balance of the lease term. But he must mitigate his damages, which means he must try to rent within a reasonable period of time to someone else. Most judges consider one month to be a reasonable period for the unit to remain vacant, so most landlords will only recover one month's rent when the tenant breaks the lease. To make life easier and protect your credit rating, why don't you go to the landlord, tell him what happened, say that you will not be able to pay the rent but he will not recover more than a months rent [but that you are judgment proof since I assume you have no real assets]so why don't both of you agree that you will pay a month's rent and leave at the end of the 30 days not owing anything else. If you are in a rent control City, in certain cities if the tenant leaves voluntarily the landlord can raise the rent but can not if the tenant was evicted, so it is to the landlord's advantage to work out a deal with you.

Re: Breaking a housing lease

No. Your lease is a separate contract, having nothing to do with employment. For instance, if you won $100,000 in the lottery, would you expect the landlord to raise your rent?