Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

Re: landlord issues

Probably too soon to break the lease, but I'll give you a blue print for it.

Write landlord a certified letter, return receipt requested, and give him seven days from the date of the letter to give you copy of the lease and fix the heater.

Call your local building codes inspector, or fair housing inspector, and ask for an immediate inspection for code violations. If they write-up a violation, and it is not fixed, you can break lease.

You can also file for rent abatement, which is a full, or partial, refund of your rent.

It frequently helps to get a nasty letter to landlord from an attorney.

If you need more help, please feel free to e-mail, or call, my office.

Good luck!

Re: landlord issues

You can't break a lease just because you don't have a copy of it. But if there is no heat in a residential rental unit, and the landlord has had a reasonable opporunity to fix it after you notified him (45 days is more than a reasonable period of time, especially in the late fall/winter), you certainly would be justified in moving to another rental unit and refusing to pay the landlord rent for the period of time after you complained about the heat not working.