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How would you interpret this rental lease provision?
Anonymous2 views3 answers
"No persons will be permitted to occupy the premises for more than any (5) days unless he/she is registered in the leasing office?"
Based on the above, what does "occupy" actually mean if it isn't expressly defined in the lease? Would it be assumed to mean sleeping there overnight for 5 days, visiting 5 days in a row, or something else? Also, the part about "any (5) days"... should that be assumed to mean any 5 days in a row, or literally any 5 days during the lease term?
Finally, when provisions of a rental lease (or for that matter, any kind of contract) are vague and ambiguous where certain words or sentences in the contract aren't expressly defined and can be considered up for interpretation to the average reader, how does the Court address such issues legally?
Joann Leigh PheasantPersonal Injury LawyerSacramento, CA ·
You are correct in finding this language confusing. I'm not sure whether it means five days in a row or five days either. It's language designed to stop extra tenants who are not on the lease. (And who may not have good credit or be hard to evict.) Remember in CA when the Landlord needs to evict a tenant they need to have the names of all people occupying the residence.
As a general matter, contract ambiguities are construed against the drafter. In English, it means if you wrote it, and it can be interpreted in one of two ways it's interpreted against the person who wrote it.
On the other side of this, why not give the Landlord the name of your new boyfriend/girlfriend? A little goodwill in the Landlord/Tenant relationship can often be helped by a dose of honesty. Wouldn't it be best to talk to the Landlord before your bff is caught sneaking out of your apartment? Just a thought. Good luck.
I am just going to jump a little off topic for a minute and tell you that whatever it means, it appears to be unconstitutional. The landlord does not have a right to monitor who comes into your home. If your mother, for example, comes to visit you for a week, the landlord has not legal right to make her "register" with the rental office. This provision is overreaching.
The landlord typically limits the right to have other occupants by having a lease provision that says that only occupants x, y and z may occupy the unit.
Occupy typically means staying overnight.
I'd construe the 5 days in this context as meaning 5 consecutive days.
Unless the lease has an "integration" clause which states that the lease sets forth all agreements between the parties, the court can consider outside evidence to interpret any vague or ambiguous provisions. This is called the parole evidence rule.
If the lease has a "severability" clause, the court can still enforce the valid portions of the contract, and just strike out the unlawful, unenforceable or ambiguous provisions.
