Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Broken lease & collection agency

Dear Inquirer:

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NOW, IN RESPONSE TO YOUR INQUIRY --

The facts that you have provided are not clear enough and/or complete enough to provide a definitive answer to you inquiry; however, I would say that the four year statute of limitations has probably run in your case. If so, your landlord has no way to legally enforce collection (i.e., via a judgment). Notify the collection agency of this and they probably will leave you alone. Notify the credit bureau that the debt is disputed and they are required to either re-verfy the debt or remove it. It may show up again so keep at it until it is permanently removed.

Thanks for sharing your interesting inquiry with us on LawGuru, and good luck with your case.

Re: Broken lease & collection agency

California doesn't allow broken leases for job relocation unless you were active-duty military transferred on military orders. There is a four year statute of limitations on suit for written contracts. It runs from when the breach occurred but might be suspended while you were out of state, so although that's a possible defense it may be full of holes. The improper collection tactics probably don't relieve you of responsibility for the debt; more likely at best give you a ground for some credit-repair work. Your attempts to negotiate at the time of move-out and subsequently are in your favor. Your question does not indicate whether the landlord attempted to mitigate his damages in other ways, and you may not know. Silence usually does not cause a forfeiture of an existing right, but bad faith in mitigating damages usually cuts into the damages that can be awarded.

Credit and collections is not an area of specialization for me, and since credit repair rather than threat of suit seems to be your biggest concern, possibly you would benefit from talking with a reputable credit-repair specialist.

Re: Broken lease & collection agency

First you have to realize that relocation is NOT an event which permits breach of contract (a lease is a contract). A party who chooses or finds it necessary to leave a rental unit prior to the expiration of the lease is still responsible under that lease, unless and until the landlord obtains a new tenant; and even then, if the new tenant pays less than your lease payments were, you must make up the difference until the lease period is over.

Notification to a landlord that you are going to "break your lease" (i.e., breach your contract) does not absolve you from responsibility for carrying out your intent, nor does the fact that the landlord has allowed others to do so without ramifications. Also, there was nothing stopping you from finding a new tenant on your own. In short, it is unlikely that you can obtain any redress against the landlord; based on the facts you stated, he went unpaid and would have been entitled to pursue a judgment against you. With respect to the credit reporting agency, you may or may not have a beef regarding how they have pursued collections, but that does not make your underlying breach of contract go away.