There is a difference between what is written on the lease, and what can actually be enforced. The lease is not just one giant legal document. It's a series of hundreds or even thousands of individual components.
Let me give you my real-life example:
A few years ago, I signed a lease for a rental in California. Two things (clauses? not sure what the legal term is) in the lease are the key points for my anecdote:
- A lease break fee equal to half a month of rent
- Something about tenants being responsible for any legal fees incurred by the landlord/property owner
I broke my lease, and the half month of rent was taken out of my deposit. I moved out a day early. My landlord had immediately found a new tenant who wanted to move in that day, so it worked out for both of us.
Then my landlord did two things which really upset me and led to me spending ~20 hours over the next month or two reading about real estate laws and consulting multiple lawyers.
- He charged me for lightbulbs that had been burnt out when I first moved in. I replaced them with my own, then swapped them back. I told him this, and he still took it out of my deposit.
- He did not refund my deposit for nearly a month. When he did, it was $150 short of the reduced amount that I had expected. He didn't have an explanation for why, and wouldn't send it.
This led me to lots of googling, and discovery of the following:
1. The idea of a "lease break fee" does not exist in California landlord/tenant laws. It is not legally enforceable. If a lease has one, it doesn't actually mean anything. If I had broken my lease without the landlord's permission, he would not have been entitled to any damages, since he filled the vacancy immediately at an equal or greater monthly rate.
2. Landlords must return a portion of the security deposit within 21 days, with itemizations and deductions. If nothing is returned within 21 days, they must return the full amount, even if deductions are justified. If the matter goes to court, the concept of "treble damages" comes into play. A tenant could get up to 3x their deposit back, depending on how the judge feels (probably a gross oversimplification of small claims, but maybe not).
3. The clause about being responsible for legal fees actually goes both ways. My landlord would have been responsible for my legal fees on top of treble damages if we went to court. There is no way to know this based on just reading the contract, and not having an understanding of laws as they are on the books AND legal precedents for prior similar cases in California.
My landlord did not budge on returning my money when I texted him summaries of the above and links to evidence. He did budge after receiving a letter from a lawyer explaining everything in a more threatening tone.
I was ultimately not out anything but time, since I have a legal plan that I pay for on an annual basis. This was the perfect situation to use it, but it was still more work.
I do want to note something about the legal fees clause. I am pretty sure I am the first tenant who ever pushed back on it to my landlord. I don't know what the term for this is, but that clause has a very strong implication. At first glance, it seems to say "even if you're in the right, if you take me (the landlord) to court, you will have to pay for my lawyer, whether I win or lose".
This is what I thought it meant, and I wonder how many tenants who have been wronged in the past see a clause like that, and it just eliminates any ideas they may have about trying to enforce their tenant rights because they see it as financially impossible.
If I had to pay out of pocket for lawyer consultations and the letter, it wouldn't have really been worth it either. I would have roughly broke even. I would have done it anyways, though. I hope my former landlord will get deposits back to people on time in the future. Though I suppose he might not be willing to let people break their leases anymore, either.
I'm pretty sure he was overcharging on utilities, but I didn't push it at the time. I've been considering reporting him to the IRS because he illegally declared the home as his primary residence while not residing in it, which I found out from the title report. I'm not sure if anything would come out of it. I would bet a limb that he wasn't reporting any of his rental income.
Which leads me to a final thought: leases in California primarily benefit the tenant. You should never be afraid to break one IF the following is true: you know the landlord will be able to fill the vacancy if they put actual effort into it (they will need to prove as such to collect from you if they want to be lazy or spiteful), and the amount of time and money you would potentially spend in the worst case is less than whatever you would be responsible for in a scenario where they don't fill your vacancy, and they convince the judge that they tried really hard and they just couldn't do it (unlikely).