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  1. #1
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    Sep 2016
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    Default Can a Landlord Increase the Rent for a Replacement Tenant

    If you break a lease in Los Angeles County, California, can your landlord increase the rent for a replacement tenant? The tenant wants to move out with five months remaining on a one-year lease/ A tenant wants to move out early and has found a replacement who is willing to pay the current rate of rent, but her landlord says that the rent is going up for any replacement tenant. The lease prohibits subleases.

  2. #2
    Join Date
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    Default Re: Can a Landlord Increase the Rent for a Replacement Tenant

    The landlord can look for a replacement tenant at market rates. If the market rates are higher than the tenant pays, either because rent has gone up since the tenant moved in or because the tenant has been in residence for a number of years and their rent was not increased to market levels over that time, then it is reasonable for the landlord to charge rent based upon present market conditions.

    It is also reasonable for a landlord who rents only on annual leases, or who permits month-to-month tenancy only for tenants whose initial lease term has expired, to require a full-year lease, and thus to not agree to sub-market rates for the lease term merely because a tenant who broke a lease is paying a sub-market rate.

    If this is a large rental property and has a standard rate that applies across all units, the landlord does not have to offer a replacement tenant a special discount. When multiple units are available, the landlord can also make the unit of the tenant who broke a lease the last unit that they fill.

    Subject to all of that, if the landlord has a tenant who is willing to rent the premises for the same amount that the tenant is paying, and is not able to find a replacement tenant due to a rent increase, the lease-breaking tenant can try to use the landlord's failure to find a tenant as a basis to argue that the landlord's effort to find a replacement was not reasonable, and that the tenant should not be liable for rent after moving out.

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