How To Avoid A Subletting Nightmare

By Julia Dunn on October 28, 2015

Are you a tenant interested in subletting your house or apartment?

Image Via Pixabay.com

Subletting is a great way of earning extra cash or utilizing unoccupied space in your property. However, it is certainly true that a lot can go awry if you aren’t keeping careful attention to the people to whom you’re subletting. Here are a few points to keep in mind to avoid a subletting nightmare.

Ensure that it is legal to sublease your property (and that it’s legal to sublease in your city).

This is basically the #1 criterium you must investigate before going forward with subletting advertising. If you go ahead and sublet your property without a lease that permits it, you could get into a lot of legal trouble and you risk eviction.

Always check with your landlord about subletting plans and see if they can work out a contract with you that contains a sublease clause within your original agreed-upon lease. Before any of this, however, make sure that it is legal to sublease at all in your city/state, as different states have different policies in regards to subletting a house or apartment.

Be very clear about your communication expectations.

The last thing you want is for your apartment to be trashed by the people you’ve let into your home–and you definitely don’t want any disputes or misunderstandings between you and your sub-tenants about who is at fault for ruining the carpets or shattering a lamp.

If your sub-tenants deface/damage anything in your apartment, you are responsible financially for necessary repairs or cleanup. This is a big liability, and to avoid a subletting nightmare, you should be clear when subletting your apartment to others that they must take extremely good care of the space–if not, you’ll face stressful financial consequences.

Without proper clarity in your communication, you also run the risk of your sub-tenant not paying their rent to you within a reasonable time frame, and this could affect your ability to pay your landlord if you rely heavily on the subtenant’s payments to afford rent checks.

Be sure your sub-tenants understand the importance of paying for their space, and the impact it could have on you if they are significantly late on their payments. It is inevitably dangerous to rely on another party’s money for your own housing security.

Meet your potential subtenants in person before locking them into your lease

More and more often these days, tenants search for potential sub-tenants through online platforms. This is usually fine at first, but to avoid permanently selecting a horrible sub-tenant, it’s smartest to meet interested sub-tenant hopefuls a few times in person if at all possible to see what they’re like–do they seem trustworthy, and can they prove that they’re reliable and responsible? What’s their lifestyle like? Do they seem like the kind of people that will be strong communicators and be able to compromise/negotiate during conflicts?

These are critical qualities to look for in a sub-tenant (or multiple). It’s too easy of a mistake to confirm sub-tenants based only on online or even phone communication; avoid it at all costs and meet sub-tenants in person first.

Another issue that could be grounds for a subletting nightmare is theft by your sub-tenants, or sub-tenants using your stuff without clear permission. This relates back to that necessity of meeting potential subtenants in person–you want to make sure you know who you’re letting into your house/apartment. Then again, subletting is already inherently risky because you can never truly know what someone would do in your living space.

Your sub-tenants may steal your stuff without your knowledge, and you may not realize it until your sub-tenants are long gone and moved out–or, they may “borrow” your stuff without bothering to return it, either intentionally or by accident. Sub-tenants may try to use your stuff right in front of you as well, so if you’re not willing to share your belongings with sub-tenants, make this clear to them from the start to avoid awkward encounters later on. They may just have different boundaries, but this is an issue of security and comfort in your living space, so take the time to address this issue and get on the same page.

Image Via Pixabay.com

There are a lot of potential subletting problems that could make your life difficult if you don’t know what you’re doing and don’t take the time to consider the type of person you want as a sub-tenant.

You must be able to count on honesty, awareness and respect from your sub-tenant because relatively speaking, you’ll become a mini-landlord once you sign a new sub-tenant into your lease. You must be able to take on this role in order to avoid a dysfunctional relationship between you and your sub-tenant.

While it can be a hassle at times, subletting is not horrible, and it can work out well for some folks. Simply making sure you know who’ll be moving into your home with regards to personality and responsibility is the best way to avoid or minimize a subletting disaster. Best of luck in your subletting endeavors!

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