Breaking a Lease: Mitigation, Re-Rental, and What You Actually Owe

Leaving early does not owe the landlord a windfall. California requires them to re-rent and credits you the moment a new tenant pays — your exposure is the gap, not the term.

What California Law Says

Civil Code section 1951.2 limits lease-break damages to rent lost after the landlord’s reasonable efforts to mitigate by re-letting. Deposits cannot simply be seized as penalties, acceleration clauses are unenforceable as written, and statutory early-termination rights — DV, military, uninhabitability — end obligations entirely.

How to Protect Yourself, Step by Step

1. Give maximum written notice and offer cooperation: showings, a replacement tenant, flexible dates.
2. Document market conditions — comparable listings and rents establish what mitigation should achieve.
3. Track the unit after you leave: listing dates, asking rent, when it re-rents; the timeline is your damages cap.
4. Dispute any deposit seizure exceeding actual lost rent and costs.
5. Assert statutory termination rights where facts support them — those convert the analysis completely.

Common Questions

The landlord says I owe all seven remaining months. Accurate?

Only rent actually lost despite reasonable re-rental efforts — in a normal market that is weeks, not the remaining term.

They re-rented at higher rent two weeks after I left. What do I owe?

Roughly two weeks plus reasonable re-letting costs — and the higher rent undercuts any claim of larger loss.