Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

Re: Lease ending Jul 31. Not renewing. Still have to pay for Aug?

Unless your lease requires a notice that you are not going to extend the lease or stay, you are not required to give such notice.

Re: Lease ending Jul 31. Not renewing. Still have to pay for Aug?

Please note that although my current business address is Georgia, I am also a member of the California Bar, so your question was forwarded to me.

I agree with Mr. Koenen. Unless there is a special clause in your lease requiring notice by a particular time to avoid automatic renewal, you do not have to give any such notice. Also, California law limits how long an automatic renewal may last to generally no more than 30 days if you are paying rent monthly. So the first thing is to review your lease carefully to be sure there is no clause purporting to automatically renew your lease or requiring you to give any kind of 30-day notice to avoid it. California law requires this notice to be prominent, in 8-pt. boldface within the lease.

Normally, at the end of a lease, it becomes a month to month rental. Once it does, your rental obligations continue until you give a 30-day notice and that period expires. However, you are not on a month to month rental, so, subject to what was said above about automatic renewal clauses, you do not have to give any special notice to leave at the end of July without further rental obligations. Your July 13, 2003 notice was probably more than you were required to give.

Assuming no such automatic renewal clause, you are fully justified to ignore your landlord's demand and just move out by July 31. Your landlord may try to withhold your security deposit for unpaid rent for August if he really intends to try to improperly get rent from you for August. In that case, you may have to take him to small claims court to recover your deposit and interest.

Assuming, again, no such clause in your lease, you probably should reply to your landlord in writing that his demand for August rent is unlawful if you move out by July 31, and if he attempts to offset such rent against any security deposit, you will seek relief in small claims court for amounts withheld, interest and any penalties allowed by law.

You can feel free to e-mail me at [email protected] if you would like to follow up about any problems that develop.