Californian leasing law?

Question

My husband has taken a apt. on lease starting from april 2008 paying a deposit of $400 for a period of one year and he is payin rent of $1412 p.m. My husband had come to US, California for an Indian company and was working on a project which has terminated and has been asked to go back to India.

He has to break the lease and now go back. Speaking to the leasing office he has been asked to provide with one months notice and two months rent. He is not in position to pay rent cause he wont be working. he has only two more weeks in US i.e. Till July 31st.

how could he avoid paying that two months rent. Can the law help ?

Answer 1

Well, as a foreign national he could just skip out of the country without paying. It's not like Interpol is going to come after him or anything. Otherwise, I would have the company he works for pay the termination fee. It's their fault he had to terminate the lease, not his.

Answer 2

No, he signed a contract and this is the typical payment out.

He owes the money, his lack of employment does not give him rights to s***w the landlord.

He can probuly get away with just leaving, as long as he never returns to the US (assuming not an American).     The landlord will sue him and win, even with him gone.

Answer 3

Another option is to find another tenant for the landlord.  If your husband has a co-worker who's looking for a place, see if the landlord will agree to a new tenant.  It'll save advertising and time costs in finding a new tenant.  Most likely the new tenant would have to go through the credit process and reference checks, but it should work out in the landlord's favor if all's well.

This is what we would do at the property management company I used to work for:

The original tenant has to break his lease, so we charge him a one time 10% fee, advertising costs, rent until the unit is re-rented or the lease expires (which ever happens first), and if the rent is lowered, the original tenant has to pay the difference for the original term of his lease.  However, if the tenant found a replacement before he vacated, and the new tenant's credit and references were approved, we'd only charge the break-lease fee and the difference in rent if that applied.  The original tenant's lease terminated on the day he vacated and the new tenant had a new lease.