Taxing Matters
Overtaxed Member
You knew that the landlord was preparing a written lease, and that written leases are the usual way rentals are done. With written contracts, the deal is not complete until the parties execute the final written document. Until then, there is no contract and every thing is still up for negotiation or the deal can be canceled altogether. So you didn't have a lease agreement because you never got to the point of even seeing the proposed written lease, let alone reach the point where you both signed it. It is possible to enter into a contract to hold the apartment until you reach the final deal on the lease, usually by paying some kind of deposit in return for a specific agreement that the home will be rented to you if you enter into a lease in a specific time period, but it does not look like you did that. So the bottom line is that you knew or should have known that the deal could fall apart anytime before you and the landlord executed the lease.
Because of this, it's going to be hard to make a case for promissory estoppel (what adjusterjack referred to as detrimental reliance). Promissory estoppel is a doctrine of the common law (court cases) that is one of the quasi-contractual remedies. In plain English quasi-contractual remedies are situations in which there was no contract but the situation is an unfair one and the courts fashion a contract like remedy to address that unfair outcome. Promissory estoppel is where a court holds a party to a promise he or she made even though the promise was not part of a contract. (Normally only promises made in contracts are enforceable.) In California the "elements of promissory estoppel are (1) a clear and unambiguous promise by the promisor, and (2) reasonable, foreseeable and detrimental reliance by the promisee." Bushell v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., 220 Cal. App. 4th 915, 929, 163 Cal. Rptr. 3d 539, 550 (2013).
Here, I think there is no clear and unambigious promise by the landlord that you had the apartment. He said that you were "approved" but that is not the same thing as a clear promise that you were going to get the apartment no matter what. You still had to agree to the entire written lease that the landlord had not yet given you and you both knew there was no lease until that was done. So I don't see a promise made here that you were getting the apartment.
If there was such a promise, then there is the issue of whether you reasonably relied to your detriment. It is this element of promissory estoppel that causes some to refer to this remedy as detrimental reliance. You had to reasonably rely on the promise and in reliance on that promise take some action to your detriment, e.g. spend money or do something else where you suffer some disadvantage. The only thing I'm seeing here is that you put in notice on your current month to month lease. There is the question of whether it was reasonable for you to give that notice to vacate prior to getting the signed lease and knowing for sure you had the place. More information on that might be needed to sort that out, but on the face of it it would not seem logical to do it before you had the new place locked in. Can you retract that notice and continue leasing there? If not, can you find another place at similar rent? What exactly has the loss of this place cost you?
If the landord pulled the home from you because of race, that would generally be illegal. But you need to have evidence of that to pursue anything, and so far you've not indicated any evidence to show racial discrimination is at work here.
You may wish to consult a landlord/tenant attorney in your area to review the facts and see if you have something to pursue. Many lawyers give free initial consultations. Perhaps additional facts you didn't mention might make a difference and give you a better shot at pursuing something than I am seeing from just what you posted.
