What&#39;s the penalty for breaking a residential lease in NorCal? What's the penalty for breaking a residential lease? For example, in the Bay Area in Northern California.
By default, the tenant is liable for all rent until the end of the lease. E.g. if neither the tenant nor the landlord can find a suitable and credit-worthy replacement tenant (e.g. if the market has crashed), then the whole lease must still be accounted for by the original tenant, and the lost "rent" becomes "damages". However, there is also a concept of damage mitigation, and California Civil Code 1951.2 explicitly defines that it's the landlord's duty to mitigate damages. This means that the landlord cannot simply sit still and collect the rent on an empty apartment. Because of this, some smaller landlords in California outright have a policy that you can cleanly break the lease by paying for 2 months of rent as a penalty. (It appears that a good summary of various examples about landlord/tenant damage mitigation is available at UniformLaws.org.) However, when it comes down specifically to the SF Bay Area with the ever increasing rents and the lowest residential vacancy rates in the nation, and also especially with the corporate landlords that already have sufficient resources in place to readily advertise and promote an abandoned unit, it can probably be argued that, in practicality, requesting more than one month of rent (in damages) as a penalty for breaking the lease is simply unreasonable.
Theft is of course illegal in all US states, and pretty much every other jurisdiction. In the US that is a matter of state law, not federal. It could be reported to the local police, but it might be hard to prove. Both landlord/tenant law and privacy law are largely matters of state law in the US, not federal law. Such laws vary a good deal in different states. In many states a landlord is allowed to enter the rented premises, usually on "reasonable" notice, or without notice if there is an emergency. If the landlord actually lives in another part of the house, and simply rents a room to the tenant, the landlord may be able to enter the room more freely than if it was a separate apartment or house. In many cases where there is a written lease or rental agreement, it will specify under what conditions the landlord or landlord's agent may enter, and how much notice is required. What does the lease in the current case say about that?
This violation of KRS 511.080, criminal trespass in the third degree, is a &quot;violation&quot;, which results in a fine not more than $250. The fine shall not be imposed if he is indigent pursuant to KRS Chapter 31.
To put it as nicely as possible, you're not being very smart by threatening to make the house guest's predicament the worst mistake they ever made. Drawing up a notarized contract with a financial penalty is ludicrous and likely simply illegal in terms of contracting for something that is against the law. Beyond that, any threats you make to against house guest could be grounds for them to file a civil suit against you, either for eviction or physical harm, and you'll end up in court rather than simply getting the house guest to leave. An Unlawful Detainer applies if there is verbal or written lease, and as such you would have to go through the formal eviction process. But if this is a simple house guest issue, with no lease or rental agreement in the past, and they are not a family member with some legal right to be in the house, law enforcement is the way to deal with it. It's very simple: set a move out date and say you will call the police or county sheriff if they don't move out on that date. If they don't leave and you do call the police or sheriff, simply say you have a house guest who won't leave, i.e. a trespasser. Law enforcement will come out and you will explain the story; they will likely make the determination that you are the property owner and the guest is indeed not welcome. Law enforcement will tell the guest to leave or be arrested, as per Florida Law - Chapter 810. You can call the police or county sheriff ahead of the move out date and determine the appropriate laws; and get advice on what you might need to do on the actual move out day. If the house guest has property, law enforcement will stand by at that time while they retrieve their property, or make arrangements for them get it at a later date, with or without law enforcement.
Until it was found to be unconstitutional, Florida had a law against surcharges for using a credit card (the statute is still on the books, however). That was the only law against &quot;convenience fees&quot; related to making payments. Whether or not a business will accept a particular form of payment (check, credit card, money order, traveler's check, cash) is up to business. Apart from credit cards, there has been no law against charging for accepting a particular form of payment, but that charge would have to be part of the contract – the lease would have to specify in advance what the processing fee is for money orders vs. cash vs. credit card. The residential tenancies law of Florida does not prohibit incorporating fees into the terms of a lease (as some states do), so the lease can specify &quot;$1500 for rent plus $10 for payment-processing, every month&quot;.
he is jointly liable for the remaining 3 months, even though he never signed anything. Is this true? That seems unlikely. The lease is between Adam and the landlord. Although the lease might have language making all tenants jointly and severally liable, it would affect Bob only if it can be proved that he was aware of those terms when he moved in. Your description does not elaborate on any agreement(s) between Adam and Bob. But Adam is not allowed to impose on Bob any obligations merely because relations between them broke down. Absent a contract between Adam and Bob, the question of whether Adam is entitled to any recovery from Bob could only be assessed on equitable grounds.
Online conversations are generally allowed evidence. However, EVERYTHING in the chat should be considered, as well as any later actions. Were there later conversations that said something different? Did the lease you signed have different terms? One line in a WhatsApp does not make your case a &quot;slam dunk&quot;. It may only be one piece of evidence in a much larger context.
Non-residential tenancies are subject to Fla. Stat Ch. 83 Part I. This is statutorily a tenancy at-will unless a contrary agreement is in writing signed by the lessor: the duration of the lease is yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly as determined by the periodicity of rent payments. There are various legal conditions related to rent default and causes for removing tenants, also conditions about premises that are wholly untenantable. Unlike residential leases, there are not any special statutory conditions surrounding the landlords presentation of leases. Florida law contemplates and allows the possibility that there are no written documents, and for non-residential tenancies has very little to say about it (only pertaining to the distinction between at-will vs not at-will leases). Therefore, the matter follows the general rules for contractual disputes: whoever makes the best case for their claims wins. If Bob has a scanned copy, that is excellent proof. If Alice alleges and proves that the scanned copy was modified, that disposes of Bob's evidence. If Alice presents a copy of the contract that says otherwise (I do mean copy), then this anomaly has to be explained. Bob can claim that they tore up Alice's original and renegotiated the deal, but he needs to prove that claim. If Alice presents the original contract, Bob's story becomes much less plausible. There are millions of variants of what might happen: the point is, there is no requirement to present the original signed document to support a claim in a contractual dispute.