The Missing Month

This page does one thing: it isolates the missing month. The cure tender of May 30, 2024 is treated separately on Section 04. The full wire ledger is treated separately on Section 05. The form's other infirmities — the Attorney Fees line, the post-inspection contractor invoice — are treated separately on the §1950.5 Form Examination. What follows is only the arithmetic of the missing month and the documentary trail that names it.

Source instrument. Move-Out Clearance Report, DocuSign Envelope ID F5D247C2-A1A9-4991-B91F-6A333347A87D, dated August 5, 2024. Residents of record: Michael A. Gasio and Yulia S. Gasio. Property: 19235 Brynn Court, Huntington Beach, CA 92648. Total Charges as written: $20,923. Rent Owed line as written: $10,833.

The form itself contains four operative numerical statements. Each is taken from the face of the document; none is inferred. Read together, they cannot all be true.

What the form says. Original Move-In Date: 05/01/2022. Rent Paid Through: 05/01/2024. Vacated: 08/05/2024. Rent Amount: $5,000.00 per month. Rent Owed line: $10,833.

If "Rent Paid Through 5/1/2024" is the operative cutoff, then the period of unpaid occupancy runs from May 1, 2024 through August 5, 2024. That is three full calendar months plus five days of August. The rent demand consistent with that period is the following:

The five-thousand-dollar gap is, to the cent, one full month of rent at the contractual rate stated on the same form. The form therefore concedes — in the dollar column — that one of the three months claimed unpaid by the date column was in fact paid.

The bank record names which month.

May 2024 by wire. June 2024 by cashier's check. July 2024 by wire to a private account. Each payment carries primary documentation independent of any party's testimony.

May 2024 · Paid by Wire · April 19, 2024

Wells Fargo Wire OW00004382456864 — $5,000 to Tran ...9166

On April 19, 2024, plaintiffs wired $5,000.00 from Wells Fargo Premier Checking (...0732) to a Wells Fargo account ending ...9166 in the name of Phat L. Tran. The wire memo to the recipient's bank reads, verbatim: "New lease 24 one payment at 5000." Status as of receipt: Completed. The transaction settled the same day.

Wells Fargo Wire Money — Details · Send 04/19/2024 · Deliver 04/19/2024 · Confirmation OW00004382456864 · Status Completed

The same day, the owner sent a text message acknowledging the payment and characterizing the transition between leases:

"We are filling out new paper work understand one at old lease 5000 then new payment 5350 I want keep paying early." — Phat Tran SMS to Michael Gasio · April 19, 2024 · 11:53 AM. Followed within the same conversation by: "Thanks Michael!"

Phat Tran SMS · April 19, 2024 11:53 AM · acknowledging the $5,000 wire as the May payment under the existing lease

The text establishes three facts in the owner's own words. First, the $5,000 wire of April 19, 2024 was for a payment at the old lease rate — that is, the May 2024 payment under the lease then in effect. Second, the owner contemplated a separate new payment 5350 going forward — a future-dated change, not a retroactive one. Third, the owner expressed a preference that the tenant keep paying early, i.e., on the same advance schedule the tenant had been using since 2022. Acknowledgment is uncontested on the record.

Source. Wells Fargo Wire Money — Details, Send Date 04/19/2024, Confirmation Number OW00004382456864, Recipient Account ...9166. Tran SMS, 04/19/2024 11:53 AM, in conversation with screenshot of the same wire confirmation attached.

July 2024 · Paid Under Protest by Wire · June 28, 2024

Wells Fargo Wire OW00004652829145 — $5,350 to Tran ...9166 — Memo: "Unknown Contract for July payment 27 of 37 on contracts"

On June 28, 2024 — seven days after Steven D. Silverstein served a Three-Day Notice to Pay Rent or Quit on behalf of the owner — plaintiffs wired $5,350.00 from the same Wells Fargo Premier Checking (...0732) to the same Wells Fargo account ending ...9166 in the name of Phat L. Tran. The wire memo to the recipient's bank reads, verbatim: "Unknown Contract for July payment 27 of 37 on contracts." The memo was the plaintiffs' contemporaneous protest at being directed off-contract to a personal account during the cure-window.

Wells Fargo Review Transfer · Send 06/28/2024 · $5,350.00 · Memo: Unknown Contract for July payment 27 of 37 on contracts

The full ledger of the sixteen recurring monthly rent wires from January 2023 through April 2024, plus the June 28, 2024 off-contract wire described above, is preserved on Section 05 (Lease & Accounts) and is not duplicated here. The single point relevant to this page is that July 2024 rent — like May and June — was paid.

Source. Wells Fargo Review Transfer record, Send Date 06/28/2024, $5,350.00 to Landlord ...9166 (the wire ledger reflects the payee Wells Fargo account in Tran's name, account number 1005959166 per the bank's separate transfer record).

All three months claimed unpaid by the form's date column were paid. The form's dollar column silently concedes one of them. The bank record establishes that one is May.

Twenty-two days before the cure tender of May 30, 2024, the listing-agent line then identified to plaintiffs as "Property Manager" — the same line from which Hanson Le subsequently sent his May 13, 2024 withdrawal text — solicited rerouting of monthly rent away from the owner's accounts and into the listing agent's personal account. The solicitation arrived in the same conversation as two contradictory effective dates for a renewal that had not yet been executed.

The same-day texts of May 6, 2024. Each of the four messages below was sent from the contact saved in plaintiff's phone as Property Manager. The contact line is the same line from which the May 13, 2024 written withdrawal arrived: "I am no longer handling or managing this property from today 5/13/2024 . . . For all matters related to this house, please contact the owner directly. — Hanson" (preserved on Section 04, Stage 6). The May 13, 2024 message identifies the line. The May 6, 2024 messages establish what was being asked of plaintiffs in the seven days prior.

May 6, 2024 — opening of the renewal solicitation: "I just talked with the owner Dr. Phat Tran . . . renewal lease term as follows"

May 6, 2024 — first stated effective date: "Renewal rent rate: $5,350/month · Effective: 5/1/2024"

May 6, 2024 — second stated start date: "start date: 6/1/2024 · rent rate: $5,350/month"

May 6, 2024 — the solicitation: "my bank account number to transfer monthly rent to me instead of to the owner"

Three observations on the face of these messages.

First, the dates contradict each other. One message states the new rate of $5,350 was effective May 1, 2024. A second message states the new rate would commence on a start date of June 1, 2024. Both were sent from the same contact on the same day, May 6, 2024. May 1 is six days before the texts were sent; the second tells plaintiffs the change had not yet started. The two cannot both be correct.

Second, the larger market figure has no relationship to either the rate proposed or the contractual rate. The "Market rent: $5,500–$5,800" line in the first message is unsupported and inconsistent with the post-eviction conversion of the unit, which was let as a short-term rental at $7,995 per month — 122% above the $5,350 figure proposed to plaintiffs. Whether the $5,500–$5,800 line was a representation of comparable market rent for purposes of California's anti-retaliation provisions is a question for the regulatory record. No finding has been made.

Third — and dispositive of the trust-fund question — the listing agent solicited routing of monthly rent into a personal account, in writing. The verbatim text reads: "Also what bank do you use? So I can provide you my bank account number to transfer monthly rent to me instead of to the owner." California Business & Professions Code §10145 requires that funds received by a real estate licensee on behalf of another, in connection with a transaction, be placed into a broker trust account established for that purpose. A solicitation, in writing, to route monthly rent into the licensee's personal account "instead of to the owner" presents a documentary question under §10145, §10176(e), and §10177(d). The same line subsequently went silent on May 13, 2024, leaving the owner to direct plaintiffs to a different personal account on June 28, 2024 — the off-contract wire reflected on the previous page of this section.

The solicitation does not carry the missing month by itself. It establishes the surrounding instrument. Plaintiffs, with the May 6 messages already in hand, paid the May rent the way it had always been paid since 2022 — by wire to the owner's account, on the customary schedule — on April 19, 2024. The owner thanked them for it the same day. The form prepared on August 5, 2024 then dropped that month from the dollar column and recorded a "Paid Through" date that was inconsistent with it.

Source. Plaintiff's mobile device — text messages of May 6, 2024 between plaintiff and the contact saved as "Property Manager." The same contact line is identified as Hanson Le by his withdrawal text of May 13, 2024 3:50 PM, preserved on Section 04 (Cure Tender), Stage 6. Hanson Le, DRE Salesperson License #01358448 (verified on the public DRE roster).

The accounting contradiction on the form did not arise from clerical error. It is the residue of a sequence of decisions made between mid-April and late June 2024 by three persons of record. The sequence is laid out below in plain prose, anchored to the documents already in evidence on this and prior pages.

April 2024. The original 2022 listing agent, Anna Ly (DRE #01894348, daughter of property owner Phat L.K. Tran), declined to participate in an unlawful rent increase. The listing was reassigned to Hanson Le (DRE #01358448), then a broker associate of the corporate licensee operating Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties as a DBA. Plaintiffs were not parties to the internal reassignment.

April 19, 2024. Plaintiffs wired $5,000 for the May 2024 rent at the contractual rate, on the customary advance schedule used since 2022. The owner acknowledged receipt by SMS the same day, characterized the wire as the May payment "at old lease 5000," contemplated a future "new payment 5350" on a separate footing, and thanked plaintiffs.

April 26, 2024. A new lease document was executed. The same day, the listing agent committed in writing to obtain owner approval for replacement of the broken dishwasher, in the language preserved on Section 04, Stage 3. The dishwasher had been reported failed on March 5, 2024 — over seven weeks earlier.

May 6, 2024. The listing-agent line solicited rerouting of monthly rent into a personal account, in writing, with two contradictory effective dates for a $5,350 figure that contradicted the $5,000 rate the owner had thanked plaintiffs for paying seventeen days earlier. (Section IV above.)

May 13, 2024. The listing agent withdrew without resolving the dishwasher condition or accepting any of the rent he had solicited be routed to him. Plaintiffs were instructed to contact the owner directly. The owner did not establish a trust-account routing in writing.

May 28–30, 2024. Plaintiffs lawfully exercised the §1942 dishwasher remedy by purchasing a replacement at $1,011.52, deducted that amount from the contractual June 2024 rent of $5,350, obtained a cashier's check for the lawful net of $4,338.48 payable to the only payee named on the executed lease, and tendered the check by USPS Certified Mail. The package was signed for at the BHHS office on May 30, 2024 by an individual whose initials were recorded as "H H." The check was sealed and never credited.

June 21, 2024. A Three-Day Notice to Pay Rent or Quit was served by counsel of record Steven D. Silverstein for the owner. The notice directed payment to a Wells Fargo account not named in either executed lease.

June 28, 2024. Plaintiffs wired $5,350 to a personal Wells Fargo account in the owner's name, with the contemporaneous protest memo "Unknown Contract for July payment 27 of 37 on contracts." Payment was made under protest because plaintiffs had been told off-contract that failure to pay would result in eviction. The funds settled.

July 3, 2024. The unlawful-detainer action was filed.

August 5, 2024. Plaintiffs vacated voluntarily, with rent documented as current. No sheriff lockout was ever executed. The same day, the owner DocuSigned the Move-Out Clearance Report drafted by Anna Ly. The form contained the dollar column that conceded one month had been paid and the date column that contradicted it. Both columns were on the same page. Both bore the same DocuSign envelope. Both went forward into the §1950.5 record.

What the form recorded in the dollar column, the form's signer could not deny. He had thanked plaintiffs for that month in writing on April 19, 2024. The bank had cleared it on April 19, 2024. The acknowledgment text and the wire confirmation were already in plaintiffs' possession by August 5, 2024. The dollar column adjusted. The date column did not.

Five persons of record acted on the document at issue. Each acted in a separate capacity. Each capacity has its own forum. The forum column below is a routing matrix, not a charging document.

Independent corroboration of Anna Ly's brokerage affiliation. Anna Ly is publicly listed on Zillow as a real-estate professional with Sun Realty & Management, located in California. The Zillow profile is openly published and has been so as of the date of this writing. The same brokerage affiliation is reflected on the California DRE public licensee roster under DRE Salesperson License #01894348. Plaintiffs assert no characterization of Ms. Ly beyond what is publicly stated by the licensing authority and by her own published professional listing.

The following are the statutory and regulatory provisions implicated by the documentary record presented on this page. They are listed for evidentiary preservation and for the convenience of agency reviewers. No finding has been made. Whether any element of any provision is satisfied on the record is reserved to the agencies and the courts.

The full jurisdictional crosswalk — every documented event mapped to the corresponding California or federal statutory provision — is maintained on Section 09 (Statute Crosswalk).

This page asserts a single proposition: the dollar column of the Move-Out Clearance Report dated August 5, 2024 contradicts the date column of the same form by exactly one month, and that month is May 2024. The proposition is supported by primary documents identified on the page. The page asserts no legal conclusion. Whether the contradiction is consequential under any of the statutory or regulatory provisions identified in Section VII is a question for the agencies and the courts. No finding has been made.