Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

The landlord has created an ambiguity which, if you send the landlord the letter that I propose, I believe no court would rule in the landlord's favor.

I would include the above-referenced timeline in your letter to your landlord. I would then state in the letter: We did enter into a verbal 6-month lease which expires at the end of August 2010. A written lease was then sent to us indicating that the six-month leased expired at the end of September 2010, which error I did not notice when I signed the agreement, which was clearly an error. Subsequent to the written lease, you confirmed for us in writing that the lease did end at the end of August 2010, as we previously agreed in our initial verbal 6-month lease. We relied on your letter and conversations dated July 7, July 28, and July 31, in obtaining another apartment. The lease on our new apartment starts on September 1, 2010. As you can see, we relied on your correspondence dated July 7 and July 28 to our detriment. It is our position that we are under no further obligation to pay rent to you for the month of September 2010. Please take notice that any negative credit reference given against us on this dispute shall be considered by us to be harassment tactics.

We will be turning in our keys on August 31, 2010. We expect that the landlord will fully comply with Civil Code section 1950.5 with regard to the return of our security deposit. Further, we would request a move-out inspection of the premises on August ___, 2010, at or about _____.m. so that we might know what we need to do to return the property in the same condition as it was in when we moved in, less ordinary wear and tear. Please let us know if this is not a good time for the inspection.

Thank you for your attention to these matters.

Very truly yours,...

Aimee Morris may be contacted at 619-991-0548.

A lease is a type of contract and usually is interpreted and enforced under ordinary contract rules. Civil Code section 1698 provides rules of law respecting modification of written contracts. Subpart (a) says "A contract in writing may be modified by a contract in writing." Arguably, the 7/28 e-mail is an offer to make a contract modifying the lease, and your subsequent conduct accepting 8/31 as the termination date was an acceptance. I'd say the average small-claims judge would buy the argument.

Subpart (c) of CC 1698 says "Unless the contract otherwise expressly provides, a contract in writing may be modified by an oral agreement supported by a new consideration." Your agreement to move out a month early is a new consideration. Therefore, I'd say you also have an argument that there has been an oral modification - unless the lease expressly says it cannot be modified except in writing.

Finally, CC 1698(b) says "A contract in writing may be modified by an oral agreement to the extent that the oral agreement is executed by the parties." You have substantially "executed" the modification by making preparations to move elsewhere.

If this goes to court, the small-claims judge is almost certainly going to rule in your favor on one or another of these arguments. There are others, including estoppel, detrimental reliance, and mutual mistake in formation of the lease.