How to remove tenant who is subletting the property?

You should check the original AST to ensure that there is a clause stating the tenant cannot sublet. Then serve the named tenant in the tenancy agreement with a section 21 notice. The courts will only act against the named tenant in your tenancy agreement. The subletting agreement has no validity. If you require bailiffs they will evict the named tenants on your tenancy agreement, anyone else will be ordered to leave the property.

Ensure your documents are in order
Seek legal advise – use an experienced agent or good legal solicitor as must serve using correct clauses and follow strict protocol .
Serve notice and evict – Chances are they will probably stop paying rent too ……..
It’s a long process as courts are terribly behind and expect around 6 months delay… if not more

I think you need to serve a section 21 to the named tenants AND a section 8 to the actual tenants because if memory serves me correct you have unwittingly become the legal landlord of the subtenants by proxy. Definitely get a solicitor to deal with this one as it is complicated and will be expensive but you can seek your legal costs for evicting sub tenants from property from the named tenants. The actual tenants should also be declaring the extra income to the taxman. Letting the taxman know and letting an investigation happen is also a powerful tool….
On a side note, a strongly worded letter stating your intention to do the above may remedy the situation quicker…..

Reply to the comment left by Leonora Eddolls at 29/04/2024 – 12:06
The original tenants may have misguidedly sub let on the Rent a Room Scheme. If they are not in occupation then committing fraud, if in occupation don’t need to pay any income tax on the first £7,500pa rental income.

Reply to the comment left by Judith Wordsworth at 29/04/2024 – 13:48If they are claiming they are still living there and claiming RaR allowance, then there may be a HMO to deal with too, and if in A4 zone this may be a planning breach.

Little nugget I read the other month. Is the flexibility in tenancies changing.

Technically under housing Act 1988, section 1(B). This is no longer an AST, as your tenant is no longer living at the address so it’s not their primary residence. This means it’s become a non-assured tenancy, so you don’t need s21 or s8 notice as they apply to AST (assumed shorthold tenancy) only. You could jump directly to a possession order to regain possession of your property.

As the head landlord you aren’t responsible for “your tenants”, tenants.

There is a lot of misinformation in this thread.

If the tenant is no longer living there, the tenancy will have ceased being assured and would be a common law tenancy. To end it, a Notice to Quit is required, followed by an application to the courts for a possession order. However, if you cant prove the tenant isn’t living there or if he could move back in, then the NtQ would fail, so you should serve both this and a s21 notice.

You have no legal relationship with the occupants, so serving notice on them would be counter-productive and could be used against you.

If your tenancy agreement bans sub-letting without your consent and you can show that you regularly inspect the property to check this, then the occupants will have no right to remain once the tenancy ends and would be cleared out by bailiffs. If not, then you will likely inherit the occupants as your direct tenants once the current tenancy ends.

Have you not inspected the property? Surely your tenancy agreement provides that the landlord has a right to enter if there are grounds for suspecting a breach by the tenant?
And what about insurance? My portfolio is insured by Aviva who have a standard clause requiring logged inspections at intervals not more than 90 days. This is not unusual nowadays.
First thing to do is arrange for an inspection. Then you should find out the truth.
As an aside, when I started my current B2L business I was short of time so I employed an agent to arrange lettings. I asked to see their standard AST agreement. To my amazement it permitted sub-letting. When I challenged this they didn’t understand what I was worried about. I sacked them before they could do any damage.

Reply to the comment left by Jonathan Willis at 29/04/2024 – 17:54
Agreed. But you will need evidence of some sort that the contracted tenant is not in occupation.

You Don’t have a Good relationship with your tenants as they have Sub let your property.
You might have ” New tenants ” who have No Right to Rent in the UK and you could face £20,000 fines PER Tenant as well as Jail.
They might stop paying Rent and you could spend months and thousands of pounds trying to evict them.
No references
No credit checks
You may now be the owner / Landlord to a HMO
It maybe overcrowded and dangerous.
Why have you not checked the property ?
Speak to Eviction solicitors