Need help on 30-day notice etc

Do you pay your rent weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly? If you pay your rent monthly and it covers from a certain date to a certain date, you are obligated to honor those dates. I know it doesn't seem fair, but that's the way it is. Even if you gave your 30 days, if it falls past the date your rent is due, you are responsible for the entire month.

Montana's right: You gave sufficient notice if your lease is up on 10/7, you gave insufficient notice if your lease is up on 10/1. if your lease goes from the first to the first, then you are responsible for paying rent for October. On the other hand, if your lease goes from the seventh to the seventh, then there's no reason why you should have to pay for another month.

I don't understand this notion of "paying through to 10/1" but having the lease expire on 10/7. If it's simply a matter of bookkeeping (did you pay a part-month's rent for the first month that you were there?) then that has no bearing on your right to vacate at the end of the lease. Just tell your landlord to calculate the amount of the part-month rent due for the first week of October.

If your rent is due the 1st of every month, you would have been ok if you gave your notice on the 1st of the month, but you're a week late with your notice and there's no way out of it unless your landlord would agree to accept a weeks rent and let you off on the rest of the month. As a previous landlady, I would have let you do that, but most people won't.

Have you asked the landlord for his interpretation of the rules?

Perhaps if he can rent the dwelling between the 7th and the 31st, you'd be partly off the hook.

Very true Noddy. Legally, your land lord can't rent out the place if you pay him for the entire month, but if he finds someone to rent it during that time, you would be off the hook. There are also situations where the landlord will allow you to find another tenant willing to take your place, but this is something you'll have to talk to them about. Since there is a manager involved as a middle person, it may be difficult if you can't deal directly with the owner of the building.

The notice period isn't based on the rent-due date, it's based on counting backwards one month from the end of the lease. If the lease ends on 10/7, then it doesn't matter when the rent is due: the deadline for notification is 9/7, not 9/1.

[Having said that, I need to qualify my remarks by adding that I'm assuming that California law is the same as everywhere else regarding these types of notifications, and also that there is nothing in the lease itself that sets up a different notification requirement]

Joe
I understand what you're saying about the lease, but he/she didn't mention anything about having a lease, so I assume they are renting on a month to month basis.

Montana: Even if she's renting on a month-to-month basis, she has a lease (in California, it's my understanding that a tenant typically signs an initial lease and then just renews on a monthly basis). If she just decided that she wanted to leave on 10/7, but her lease ran from 9/1 to 10/1, then she's outta' luck.

That's what I was saying Joe.

Don't let that Land lord use you like that. you did the right thing. Sorry i am late on this.

The landlord is not using them. The law is there to protect both the landlord and the tenant.