Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
when co-signing for a lease on a house or apartment for one year, will the co-signer still be responsible when the lease goes to a month to month after the year.
2 Answers from Attorneys
Probably. The language of any guarantee provisions is probably determinative. If the lease says "continuing guarantee" or words to that effect, absolutely. If there is any hint that the guarantee was limited to the initial term, the outcome is far less certain.
Holding over after a residential lease expires continues the lease on a month-to-month basis under the original terms, which would include the co-signer (Civil Code section 1945), but if an initial term provided that the co-signer was obligated for only one year, the obligation would expire under the said original term.
There is an excellent discussion of this issue in a commercial lease context in the Court of Appeal decision in Central Building, LLC v. Cooper (2005), published at 127 Cal.App. 4th 1053,
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