Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Just signed lease, can I withdraw within three days?

The type of "withdrawal" you refer to is probably what lawyers call rescission (verb: to rescind). Contracts (such as leases) often can be rescinded because of mutual mistake and occasionally for other reasons such as fraud or lack of capacity of a party.

In addition, various consumer-protection laws give a right to rescind (or withdraw) to the consumer in certain specified types of deals. Some of these are:

Time-share purchases (72 hours);

Home solicitation sales (e.g. door-to-door sales)(72 hours);

Subdivided raw land (14 days);

Parcel wrongfully subdivided (one year);

Interstate sales of undeveloped land in large subdivisions (7 days);

Certain transactions violating truth-in-lending (three business days).

None of these would apply to an ordinary residential lease in California. However, if you leased a place and can't (or don't want to) live in it, it isn't necessarily true that you're stuck paying rent for the entire duration of the lease. The landlord has a duty to you to mitigate his damages (upon your notifying him of your intention to breach the lease) by re-renting it to someone else. Also, perhaps you could sublease it or assign the lease to someone.

A lawyer with all the facts could assist you in minimizing your problem. Without knowing what caused you to want (or need) to "withdraw," it is impossible to give a more complete answer.