Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Unless the lease agreement itself contains specific provisions as to whether and how it may be extended or renewed, I'd say the following concepts would apply:

1. An agreement to extend an existing lease by not more than one year need not be in writing at all; an oral agreement would suffice.

2. Since the agreement can be oral, signatures are not necessary.

3. Nevertheless, oral agreements to extend leases are not recommended, because of the difficulty of proof that an extension has indeed been granted, and if so, what the terms are.

4. Email is nowadays an approved way to form written contracts and electronic signatures are accepted in many commercial transactions, if the evidence shows the parties intended to be bound. Emails are also evidence that may support the existence of an oral agreement and to show its terms and conditions.

5. Every agreement, in order to be binding, whether written or oral, must be sufficiently complete and definite to show what the subject matter and principal terms the parties agreed upon were. Nowadays, courts don't expect much, but if the purported agreement is entirely too vague and lacking specifics, a court will probably hold that the parties didn't reach an enforceable agreement.

6. Acceptance of rent is usually evidence of a rental, at least for the period covered by the rent amount accepted. In a month-to-month situation, acceptance of rent automatically extends the rental by another month, by statute, but at the end of a term lease acceptance of additional rent is only evidence of an extension.

7. Sometimes, it'll boil down to the judge forming a conclusion as to what's fair in the circumstances, and then finding a legal rule justifying his or her conclusion.

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