Make your Free
California Lease Agreement

A California Lease Agreement allows a property owner to outline the terms and conditions of an arrangement that has been made with a renter. With the appropriate details, this contract may help to reduce disputes by ensuring that there is a mutual understanding between the signing parties. You can click on the button labeled "Make document" to check out the California Rental Contract sample and see what information you'll need to create your lease. Suited for renting out every residential property type, our rental agreement for California can be used by landlords in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, and every other city or municipality located in the Golden State.

As with any contract, California Lease Agreements will not be legally binding until signed. Different from many other websites you might come across, Rocket Lawyer offers much more than any run-of-the-mill California Lease Agreement template or fillable PDF that you could obtain elsewhere. In the event of missed payments or any other problem related to your California Lease Contract, your membership provides the optional benefit of Document Defense^® support from an attorney.

Even if you are renting out your property to a friend, it is always a good idea to make a California Lease Agreement. You may prefer to use a California Lease Agreement due to the fact that it grants the following benefits:

• All parties know what they are responsible for
• The duration of the rental is established
• Payment-related information is well-defined

Anyone who opts not to make a California Rental Contract, in many cases, should anticipate some issues, including unexpected changes to the arrangement and the inability to meet payment due dates.

To complete your California Lease Agreement, you'll need:

• The address and description of your property
• The full name of each inhabitant
• What the start and end dates are for the tenancy
• How much the rent will be and when payment is due
• What utilities are included

As usual, the California Lease Agreement will also include policies related to visitors, smoking, animals, overdue payments, and moving out before the lease ends. In the process of making your rental contract, you also will have the ability to add more specifics about insurance requirements, furnishings, and maintenance procedures. Using the Rocket Lawyer document tool, you have the ability to add more custom modifications, as needed.

California does not have a limitation in place for residential leases, so you can lease for as long as the tenant and landlord agree. If you are a property owner who wishes to incentivize multi-year leases, you might consider offering a discount on the monthly rent.

The fees associated with hiring and working with an attorney might total hundreds of dollars or thousands, depending on the level of complexity. As you plan to create your free document with Rocket Lawyer, you will need to follow the instructions that are given. You can always have a Rocket Lawyer On Call^® attorney review it for you prior to signing it.

To turn this drafted document into a true legal agreement, both parties must sign it, digitally using RocketSign^®, or otherwise. Make sure that the tenant receives a copy of the fully executed agreement. With a Premium membership, you also can print it out, save it as a Word document or PDF file, and/or copy it when needed. Also feel free to take a look at our entire selection of landlord-tenant legal documents.

The law can change over time and it may be different by location. If you've got any questions in connection to California rental laws, you can always talk to a lawyer. Hiring a legal professional to review your California Lease Agreement can be expensive. Certain lawyers won't even accept requests to review your document if they weren't the one who worked on it. In the event that an attorney does decide to help you, they would still charge their standard fees for doing it. An easier and more cost-effective alternative is through the On Call attorney network. By becoming a Premium member, you can get your contracts reviewed or send any questions. Whether you decide to create more copies of your California Rental Contract or other legal documents for landlords, Rocket Lawyer will be by your side.

The response to this question depends on your specific needs, but, no matter where you are, there are a few factors to note when making the decision to invest in real estate. These may include: the breadth of tenants' rights, restrictions on security deposit amounts, required disclosures, how hard an eviction might be, and, finally, the amount of property taxes that you will need to pay. That said, since California is home to popular tourist attractions like Yosemite National Park, Disneyland, and the Golden Gate Bridge in addition to colleges like Stanford University, the University of California, and the California Institute of Technology, there shouldn't be any shortage of potential tenants if your property is located close to them.