Landlord - "double dipping" on rent?

Here’s kind of a legal question for you Dopers. I gave my 30-days notice to move out of my apartment on the 17th of September, so I had to pay a pro-rated amount through the 17th of October. Well, Saturday (Oct 6) I vacated the apartment and turned in my keys. So I was 11 days early.

Question: If the landlord is able to turn around and rent it to the next tenant before Oct 17, is she obligated to return to me the (pro-rated) amount of rent making up the difference between when the new tenant took over and the 17th? In other words, if a new tenant moves in on the 15th, is the landlord required to refund me 2 days’ rent?

To not have to do so would seem to be some sort of legal violation whereby they’re renting the same apartment to two separate people simultaneously.

Granted, it probably wouldn’t be enough money to make a court appearance worthwhile, but if I do find out that they do this, do I have any legal backing to call them on?

Thanks for any help. I’m in California if that makes a difference.

IANALawyer but I was a landlord in Maryland. Once you notified the landlord that you vacated the apartment, and you turn in your keys, you forfeit the rent for the 11 days unless he refunds it at that time out of the goodness of his heart. He has no legal obligation to refund your money. It would be a waste of time to try and take legal action.

You would have been within your rights to keep the key until 10/17, just out of spite, even if you had moved out. But at this point you have no recourse.

IANAL but I believe the answer is “no.”

You don’t say whether you had a lease or were renting month-to-month, but either way you understood that you had to give 30 days notice (and pay the rent for those 30 days.)

And, in the absence of anything else written, that’s your liability. The fact that you turned in your keys early did not relieve you of that obligation. On the other hand, that 30 days notice prevented the landlord from throwing you out on the street the day after you announced you would vacate.

jseigle and kunilou, I think you’ve answered a question that wasn’t asked. I don’t think ski is asking for a refund. The question seems to be, whether a tenant is owed anything if the landlord is able to rent an apartment that tenant already paid rent on. The answer, I believe, is yes. Tenant has created a situation where landlord can get twice the rent for the same property, it only seems fair to allow tenant to share in the wealth. Particularly, when you consider landlord is renting out tenant’s apartment while it is still tenants apartment.

But, there’s still the tremendous “why bother” factor for two days of rent.

ski, if you have any interest in this question as a real situation, you should only consult a lawyer licensed to practice in California. Otherwise, you only get answers worth the paper they’re printed on.

I don’t think it’s legal for the landlord to rent the aparment. It’s still your until the 30 days are up. If he wants to rent it, he has to clear it with you. Then you can talk refund and such.

IANAL

Robb, I think the question was answered. ski paid for the right to live in the apartment for the final days. If he chooses not to, and returns the keys and vacates and advises the landlord of this, the landlord is under no obligation to hold the apartment empty, and if he is able to rent it out immediately, is also under no obligation to return any rent collected from ski.

ski chose to leave early. That’s that.

Robb got my question right. EJsGirl, I don’t know that I necessarily agree with you. The more general question becomes:

Tenant has provided 30 days’ notice IAW the lease agreement. Landlord and tenant both sign the 30 days’ notice agreement that the rent will be paid until (in my case) the 17th of October. Now, my stance is that the apartment is still “mine” until the 17th, regardless of when I make the physical act of turning in the keys. So, legally, is the act of turning in the keys sufficient to consider the apartment vacated? Or is the apartment not legally vacated until the 17th regardless of any other actions (barring other mutual agreements)?

I tried looking in the California Civil Code, but wasn’t able to find anything specifically about this. Note that this has not happened yet (as far as I know), so it’s mostly academic, but I found the question interesting. Yes, a couple days might not be worth the effort, but if it happened to be, say, 5 days - that might be worth pursuing (not in court necessarily but through discussions with the landlord).

ski, I think that you’ve identified the central issue.

The question is whether it is your apartment. Somewhere, I have a book on this subject, but its in a box somewhere.

If the apartment is still yours, your landlord should pay if he manages to make even more money off of it. This is not a refund of rent already paid, this is a splitting of profit.
Remember people, renting a place gives your some rights in that property.
Despite this, I’m certain that this is the sort of thing to which landlords would consider a tenant crazy for asking.

ski, I bet that this has happened somewhere. I know that it was a question in out property class. There’s just no telling where my notes are.
Part of my answer is based on the following. Let’s assume a hypothetical tenant with a two year lease at $1000 a month. At the end of year one, tenant decides its time to move to Hawai’i, packs up his stuff, locks his door, and walks away. I think we’d agree this breaches his lease. Landlord now has certain remedies available to him for tenant walking away, but landlord also has a duty to decrease his damages. So, landlord relets the apartment. I hope that we would agree that tenant is responsible for reasonable expenses in reletting the apartment - things like advertising the newly available apartment. I hope that we would also agree that if the fair market value of the rent went down and the best landlord could do was $800, that tenant should be liable to landlord for $200 a month - the difference in what landlord should have gotten without a breach. Next, I worry that you won’t agree. Let’s say that fair market value rent went up in the area, and landlord can rent it for $1200 a month. Now, we have a situation where landlord can make more money because of the breach. I think that tenant is entitled to part of landlord’s extra profit.

But, this whole thing misses the point slightly. ski’s original question posits a situation where landlord gets rent from two tenants because he is leasing an apartment that original tenant still has rights to. There is no bad actor here. There isn’t anyone who hsould be penalised. There isn’t some concept here where landlord is entitled to a huge windfall, because original tenant got his act together and moved out early. Landlord giving up some of his profits sounds pretty fair to me.

I agree that it is an interesting question.

In many jurisdictions, under many circumstances, landlords may not “double-dip.”

In the typical scenario, the tenant abandons the property mid-way through the lease and stops paying rent. Traditionally, in this situation, one remedy of the landlord is to “accept the surrender” by entering the property and re-leasing it to another tenant. If the landlord elects to do this, the former tenant’s liability stops, even though there may have been many months left on the lease.

If I were representing you (which I’m not!!), I would argue that by re-letting the apartment before the end of your lease, the landlord accepted an early surrender, and that you are therefore entitled to a rebate of your rent. I would also argue that the Landlord has been unjustly enriched.

I’m not sure whether these arguments would succeed, but they don’t seem unreasonable to me.

Of course nowadays, landlord-tenant law is heavily regulated by statute and case law, and so you’d really have to check Cal. laws & cases to decide the question.

Anyway, as you point out, it’s probably not worth beating up your landlord over a few days’ rent.

(Standard disclaimer about legal advice)

SKI –

The following is based on common-law principles of real property and leaseholds and may not be (and actually probably is not) the law in every state. On the other hand, there appears to be nothing in the CA civil code to contradict this analysis. On the third hand, I don’t practice in CA and I didn’t look very hard, so there may well be. Only a fool takes as gospel legal advice posted on a message board.

At this point, you have a contract for the apartment until 10/17 – you to pay rent in exchange for possession of the premises.

No. By turning in the keys, you have surrendered your right to entry into the apartment – you have in effect returned the premises back to the landlord. You could if you choose leave the premises empty until the 17th, but you cannot surrender the premises back to the landlord and then dictate what she does with them after the surrender.

Yes. You have given back to the landlord your right of entry. You no longer have any interest in the premises, not even as a leasehold, due to your voluntary surrender of your right of entry.

Depends on whether you surrender your right of entry.

Under no circumstances does the landlord owe you any of the rent back for the period under question. She has an agreement with you to take a certain sum of money for a certain period of time, and the fact that you don’t need the premises for the given period of time doesn’t create in her an obligation to give the money back. If you do surrender early, it would of course be nice if she refunded your extra money (assuming she rerents the place right away) but AFAICT under CA law she is not legally required to do so.

Theres a Nolo Press book, Tenants Handbook, handles this all this legal stuff for you on California Law. Our library & bookstore have it so Im sure you can find it, or at nolo.com ?