house rent lease (no renewal doc was given) questions

qwerty said:
When it comes to real estate everything needs to be in writing or it didn't happen. Business law 101
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Not that simple. Contracts can be verbal and text message contracts can be binding. However, if there is a notarized document, it will usually trump everything else.

pricedoutJay is not very clear in his original post. 

If we give the owner a 30 day notice to move out, what could be my ramifications? 

You can ask the owner to move out. Some owners are thrilled for an existing tenant to leave because a new tenant will pay 20% more in rent. Unless the owner is antagonistic, try to first come to a pleasant agreement.

Am I responsible for the remainder of the lease term?
You never ever specified what the lease term that you agree by text is so it's impossible to answer this question.
 
pricedoutJay said:
Thanks for the feedback especially paperboy.

My original lease term was from Jan to Dec.  Then it expired and never got renewed.  This past summer, the owner wanted to sell, changed his mind, and raised the rent.  So I asked if he could give me a lease agreement specifying what the term was going to be; either until this Dec and gets renewed again or from August 2015 til July 2016.  He said that he would get me the doc but never followed up so far.

So I understand it's unclear.. believe me I wasn't sure either. 

Background:  I'm grateful that the owner didn't raise the rent for 2 years but I did my share of taking care of the house so that he doesn't have to worry about anything much.  However, the fact that he was willing to raise the rent so much all over sudden, got met thinking that may be it's time for me to either move to different rental or get one on my own this winter or next year spring..
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Basically you want to start house-hunting but want to know if you can give 30 day notice any time without the owner's approval. I understand where you are coming from.

Either until this Dec and gets renewed again or from August 2015 til July 2016
This is pretty important. Since it was by text message if you really want an opinion you'd need to post the entire text message history.

You could also ask the owner what his/her impression is of the situation. "When does my lease currently expire?"
 
periodic rental agreement - an oral or written rental agreement that states the length of time between rent payments - for example, a week or a month - but not the total number of weeks or months that the agreement will be in effect.

sounds like your texting resulted in the above.

pricedoutJay said:
Thanks for the feedback especially paperboy.

My original lease term was from Jan to Dec.  Then it expired and never got renewed.  This past summer, the owner wanted to sell, changed his mind, and raised the rent.  So I asked if he could give me a lease agreement specifying what the term was going to be; either until this Dec and gets renewed again or from August 2015 til July 2016.  He said that he would get me the doc but never followed up so far.

So I understand it's unclear.. believe me I wasn't sure either. 

Background:  I'm grateful that the owner didn't raise the rent for 2 years but I did my share of taking care of the house so that he doesn't have to worry about anything much.  However, the fact that he was willing to raise the rent so much all over sudden, got met thinking that may be it's time for me to either move to different rental or get one on my own this winter or next year spring..
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You may also be interested in:

"The landlord must give you at least 60 days' advance notice if the rent increase is greater than 10 percent of the rent charged at any time during the 12 months before the rent increase takes effect"

BTW, a great resource is: www.dca.ca.gov
 
Keep in mind that your landlord may not feel the same about you. Staying there just sets you up for getting screwed again and maybe with less notice next time. I would move out as soon as practical. Since he has expressed an interest in selling the property, you may be in a situation where he will show the house to potential buyers while you are still renting.

pricedoutJay said:
Thanks peppy.  I knew about that 60 day notice for 10% or higher hike.

So on your previous post, what you are saying is that since there was no 1 or 2 year lease term signed on a document, the texting agreement on a higher rent amount only decided monthly rental agreement? 

***

To clear any confusion, I am not trying to screw my landlord.  However, because I feel like he (inadvertently) screwed me over by jacking up 25%(while it's still legal for him to do).  I want to everything in legal way.  So (I will talk to a real state lawyer or expert) I am trying to figure what legal issues or obligation I may have to deal with if I should decide to move on.  Trust me.  I don't want to move around. It's a pain.  We've planning to buy a house but not quite there yet with 20% down payment and this sky rocketing price around Irvine.  This is the biggest down side of being a house renter.  One can be forced to move unexpectedly, which we tried to avoid but at this point, I rather pay the same amount to someone else for a bigger and newer rental until we buy our own finally...
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