Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

Re: Breaking lease? subletting

Assuming that you are not under a rent control scheme, they can charge for your moving out early as that is a breach of the lease agreement. They made the agreement with you and not someone they know nothing about. On the other hand, they can only collect what their damages are, which besides some incidental non-costly things as book keeping, background search, etc, is the lost of rent once you stop paying until they can find a new, acceptable renter. You seem to have solve that aspect; they do not get to charge you just because you are beling nice and telling them beforehand that you can not afford to live there anymore. Only the governmnent can legally get away with punishing people for the sake of revenue purposes.

If your lease has no provision for such a penalty, and no provision for their being able to change terms while the lease is in effect, then the new rule does not effect you. They would be breaching the lease if they tried to impose it.

With the above arguments, try to talk to the highest person in the organization you can reach to work out a compromise acceptable to you.