Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

I would have to see the contractual agreement terms of the agreement with the agent but if they are supposed to be paid for finding a tenant who meets your requirements for leasing out your home, they have not done so if the tenant is going to back out of the deal. You are not going to be able to just let the house sit there for the term of the original lease as yo have a duty to mitigate damages, as the prior responses state. They are charging about 70% of the first month's rent plus another 6% of the rent to manage the place? What management occurs with the place empty. You need to send them a demand letter to return the money to you and terminate any ongoing management agreement with them. you may need an attorney to do that. If you need my assistance for that, please contact me. 510-441-2684

As pointed out before, you must get the tenants to clearly state what they are actually going to do and you need to tell them how much and why you are keeping their deposit.

I completely disagree with Mr. Shers on this. He is confusing the law on commissions for real estate sales and the law on commissions for real estate leasing. If you have a signed enforceable lease with a tenant, the agent has earned the commission. There is a slim chance that the listing agreement with the agent requires them to find a tenant who actually moves in, but I've never seen an agent that foolish. All the agreements I have ever seen say the commission is earned when an approved tenant signs the lease and pays whatever starting rent and deposit is required. So this is about the tenant, not the agent.

As for the tenant, you first need to get a more formal written notice from the tenant. Without telling them what you intend to do about it, you should tell them that you cannot accept an email as a notice of termination of the lease. Tell them to send it to you in writing, signed by whomever signed the lease (such as both husband and wife, for example). Once you have that in hand you can, and in fact must, proceed to find new tenants. This is what Mr. Shers meant by mitigating your damages.

Once you find a new tenant, you can calculate what if anything the defaulting tenants are entitled to. You get to deduct all your expenses of re-letting the property, including advertising, new commissions to the agent, pretty much everything it costs you out of pocket to find a new tenant. If you cannot get a new tenant to begin paying rent by July 1, you also get to deduct lost rents. Once you know what your entire costs and lost rents are, if it is less than $9,600, you return the balance to the defaulting tenants. If it is more than $9,600, then you have to decide if it is worth suing the defaulting tenants for the short-fall.