Re: Is my lease contract valid? California

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On 1/02/09, Andrea Marco wrote:
> I have a rental agreement/lease contract for a property in
> California. The lease agreement was signed and executed
> with no "beginning or termination dates" My verbal
> agreement was 6 months, the owner now says I signed for a
> year. The contract is checked for lease, but with no term
> dates or length of time. The only dates on the contract are
> the dates we signed and under "deposit" received rent from
> 07/01/08 - 1/01/09. I have a PDF of the contract on the
> date executed and the "term" area is blank. Does that make
> this lease null and void? How do I prove it was for 6
> months only?

The landlord will have the burden of showing the length of
the lease if he sues you for specific performance or damages.
Parole evidence (oral evidence to establish what is not in
the contract) can not be used to contradict a term of a
contract, but here parole evidence would probably be
admissible to clarify an ambiguous or missing term if there
was a mutuasl mistake which appears to be the case. However,
he says you did and you say you didn't agree to 1 year. It's
his burden to prove you did, so you would win a tie. If you
made lease payments each month, I think you have at most a
valid month to month lease. The length of a lease is a
material term so it may be void ab initio as far as the
length goes.

Let us know what happens. I can't advise you what to do.
You will need to consult a CA lawyer for legal advice.