Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
Lease extension by email
My tenant and I agreed to extend an originally written & signed lease by email for one year. Prior to the end of the 2nd year, we agreed again by email to extend the lease by 11 months - they emailed they did not want a month-to-month. Tenant gave a 30 day notice after 5 months. Is our email agreement binding? I have not been able to rerent the unit even at a lower rent and want to know if I can keep the 1 month security deposit for loss of rent.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Lease extension by email
Probably. A lease extension would be treated as a new lease, and leases for a year or less don't have to be in a writing, signed by the party to be held liable, as would a lease for more than a year. Furthermore, Civil Code section 1624, the Statute of Frauds (law which requires a signed writing in many transactions including long-term leases) now has a subsection - 1624(b)(4), which authorizes electronic documents and signatures. I haven't researched it in detail, but the trend of the law is to encourage electronic commerce so long as there are reasonable safeguards against transmissions that the sender didn't intend to be binding at the time of sending being treated as binding.
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