Can you amend the lease signed by property manager in the middle?

[Ed Ju]

Hi, to provide the context, we entered into an agreement with a property management where property management company can lease our rental. The property management company signed 12 month lease with tenant where our names are not listed in the lease agreement.

Now, we want to move to a new property management company, as the current PM is charging exorbitant maintenance fees even for small repairs. There is a 30 day notice we can give to terminate property management agreement but given that the 12 month lease is in their name, and in California there is no option for landlord to terminate the lease before it ends, what options do we have to change the property manager? can the property management make it difficult for us to move away from them? can they legally do it?

Appreciate any guidance on this

Thanks,

Ed

[Nathan Gesner]

Quote from @Ed Ju:

Welcome to the BiggerPockets forums!

You can't change the terms of the Agreement but you can terminate management and transfer the Agreement to the new Property Manager to enforce. All the new PM will do is send Tenants a notice of new management with instructions on how to make payments, communicate maintenance issues, etc. Your new PM should know how to handle this. If they don't, you should look for a different PM.