You are a landlord and the licensed property manager you have hired to manage your property has engaged in what appears to be unprofessional practice. The manager offered your property for lease to two prospective tenants by approving both rental applications and emailing DocuSign leases for signature to both applicants concurrently with the requirement that a cashiers check or wired funds be provided together with the signed lease. You question this procedure, but the property manager informs you that there are zero guarantees that either applicant will sign or get the certified funds in the next day and that you certainly don't want to push off an applicant if the other applicant does not pan out. You ask the property manager if the declined applicant can sue you. He tells you No, because If you want the other applicant (and they sign and give the money, or you simply want to wait and see if they do), then I simply return the declined applicants money immediately. There is no breach of contract because the lease is not a binding contract until you as landlord sign it.

The next day the manager informs you that surprisingly he received signed leases and certified security deposit funds from both applicants. He asks you which tenant you would prefer to rent your property. You tell him Applicant 2. The property manager immediately emails the declined Applicant 1 as follows:

I am sorry to inform you that the subject property is regrettably no longer available and we will immediately refund your deposit funds. Due to an influx of interested applicants in the past several days, we offered the lease to you and another party on the caveat that we needed a signed lease, deposit along with the owner's signature to the lease to confirm the same. One of those other applicants did indeed get their signed application, check in before yours and the owner is very sorry to have to now make this difficult determination to honor the other applicant.

The declined applicant immediately emails back We had a binding contract. I performed, you did not. There are tangible damages. I paid an application fee, paid for a credit check, cancelled my lease, scheduled movers, provided a Certificate of Renters Insurance, and transferred all my utilities (SCE, SCG, Spectrum). Now, I likely will be either homeless or subject to an unlawful detainer situation at my current residence. Those legal fees and damages will be passed along to you. At no point did you disclose that you were negotiating a lease with multiple tenants. It's a simple, but necessary, disclosure.

questions:

1 Did the declined applicant actually have a constructive binding contract without you as landlord ever signing the lease based on Detrimental Reliance - The Doctrine of Promissory Estoppel

2 Would this be deemed just cause for the declined applicant to sue both you and the property manager for damages? Why or why not?

3 If so, what specific damages might a jury likely consider reasonable to award to the Plaintiff based on the facts presented in this scenario? Specify what you feel would be the maximum reasonable award for the applicant now being "homeless" if the applicant's current landlord will not allow holdover? What is the maximum amount of rent damages the applicant could be awarded if his current landlord files an unlawful detainer action under CA law and your lease allows a maximum of $1,000 in attorney's fees? Please conduct independent online research to document your answer.

4 What might be a better property management practice to hold prospective tenants accountable for their alleged promise to rent a property in a multiple application situation in order to protect you as landlord from losing several other multiple applicants due to delays by applicants who change their mind? (Note: In a multiple application situation, taking the first applicant that applies is the absolute worst possible practice!)