How do I handle illegal subletting on Booking.com?

You can contact booking.com and do Airbnb too and tell them you are the owner… Best to send a copy of your title deed and tell them it is a breach of both your lease and the AST.

They will remove the adverts.

Dear Mr Peters. Many thanks for responding. I have tried every means of contacting them but it proves impossible without a booking reference or property number. Their call centre effectively blocked me – e mails bouncing back requesting the above information. There is just no way of getting through the cast iron veneer. I believe my letting agents compliance team have been able to get through as I have seemingly taken a call this morning from an employee so hopefully can make some progress. Presumably now down the S 21 route. Tim

Reply to the comment left by Tim at 13/08/2024 – 09:52
Surely your property isn’t too difficult to identify on Booking.com and therefore you have a property ID number…….

And shop the tenant to HMRC

Why don’t you set up a new Booking.com account and reserve the property for an upcoming month such as the whole of September? Obviously it depends on the cancellation policy they’ve applied to the listing but you can seriously screw up any profit they are seeking to make between price they pay you and price on Booking.com. Also, as mentioned in comments above, report them to HMRC (& DWP) so, again, they’ll lose a chunk!

Personally I would book the apartment on Booking.com for a 2 night stay, use this as evidence, change the locks and challenge the tenant to follow up legally. Worst case scenario you have to give a new key but serve a section 21 plus section 8 at the same time.
Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
My guess would be that the tenant leaves without fuss and goes on to do it to another landlord.
However my solution isn’t without pitfalls but the tenant has certainly broken the term of the contract.

Reply to the comment left by Michael Johnson – Amzac Estates at 13/08/2024 – 14:50
Unfortunately a tenant breaking the terms of a contract are not enough to just change the locks regardless of the circumstances

Reply to the comment left by Nikki Palmer at 13/08/2024 – 16:24
Hi Nikki, in normal circumstances that would be correct as that action would leave the tenant homeless so you need a court order BUT, in this instance, the tenant hasn’t just broken the terms of the lease as, by renting it back to the landlord via Booking.com, they have made themselves homeless by moving out and giving the Landlord the keys back – the fact that they haven’t undertaken due diligence and ensured they haven’t rescinded ownership by returning the keys to the landlord in exchange for 2-days rent is their own fault. Once they’ve moved out and surrendered the keys to the landlord it’s an act of making themselves homeless as the landlord hasn’t done anything wrong but the tenant has. I’m sure a judge might deliberate on the issue but I very much doubt the tenant would go to court, stand in front of a judge and say they lost their tenancy rights by renting the flat back to the landlord via a 3rd party agent; it is VERY doubtful that they’d win and wouldn’t want to risk losing and having to pay legal costs for all of the parties involved.

Surely if the tenant is subletting he hasn’t made himself homeless as the property is not his main residence, as required under an AST.

He is clearly in breach of contract. Ask yourself what if any legal argument he could reasonably promote as most would be against the doctrine of ‘clean hands’.

You can find your own property on the platform… just enter your postcode and search. When you book use an alias name. Turn up. Let yourself in. Board it up – put an “enforcement notice” on the door, change the locks. I dare him to challenge it.