Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

You really don't have any rights in this situation, except that the new landlord must give you a thirty day notice of change in terms of tenancy before increasing the rent from what your prior landlord was charging you (the reduced rent), and to require a new security deposit. Once your old term lease expired, you become a month-to-month tenant, and as such, the terms of your tenancy can be changed on 30 days notice, unless the prior written lease has a different term for changes. In this case, when did the landlord notify you of the new rent for June? If he did so on or before May 1, 2010, he has a pretty good argument that he modified the terms of the new arrangement with the prior landlord verbally. Your counter to that would be that you entered into a new two-month lease with the landlord when he reduced the rent for May and June, and that the landlord cannot change that until after the term of that new, two-month lease expires. Without a notice of change of term of tenancy from the new landlord in writing, and issued at least 30 days prior to June 1, 2010, he will have a harder time evicting you on the basis of the claim that you must pay higher rent, but I will not go so far as to say that he will lose. It's not a black & white question and depending on the judge, it could go either way.

That being said, there is no question in my mind that if you pay $1,750 for June rent, he will give you a three day notice for the balance of the rent and security deposit, and will proceed to file an eviction based on that. If you chose to stand your ground, you will have to go fight this in Court. Get a Declaration from the prior landlord indicating that he agreed to give you a two-month term lease, with the rent being $1,750 for May and June, and no security deposit. He will need to be available to testify in support of your position at trial when the landlord proceeds to try to evict you. Good luck - that stinks. If you can move before June 1, 2010, I would suggest you do so, as defending the eviction has no guarantee that you will win, and has tremendous downside in that with an eviction order, you will not get to pay the difference between what you paid and what you owe and stay - you will be evicted shortly after trial.

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