Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Breaking Lease Contract

The answers to your three questions are no, see previous answer, and no.

A lease is an enforceable contract. Damages for breach of a residential lease are subject to a limitation, however; the landlord can't claim damages to the extent he did, or could have, re-rented to someone else. Therefore, early-departing tenants can help themselves by finding a new tenant, subletting or assigning their leases if permitted.

There is one tiny exception. If the landlord was aware that you were renting for a specific purpose, and that purpose was frustrated, you might be excused from payment. This rule of law was announced in some early English cases involving people who rented second-story apartments for one day, or one week, along the route of the king's coronation parade, in order to have a better view. When the king became ill and the parade was postponed, the renters refused to pay the huge rents they'd agreed upon. The courts excused the 'tenants' from their obligations on the ground of 'frustration of purpose.'

If you rented, for example, on the premise that you were hired as construction foreman for the new nuclear power plant nearby, and the landlord knew this and charged you a boom-town rent level, but then the nuke to everyone's surprise failed to get permits, you MIGHT be able to get out of the lease. A job offer in another part of the state won't work, however.