Permit the tenant to sub let or break the contract?

Permit the tenant to sub let or break the contract?

14:47 PM, 4th May 2016, About 8 years ago 4

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I have a tenant who signed a two year lease and a month later was asked by his firm to work overseas for 6 months. It is a two bedroom house and the tenant proposed to put all of his personal things in one bedroom and sub let the other bedroom and remainder of the house for the duration of his time away so that he gets some contribution towards his rental payments, does not fall foul of the insurance company and tenancy agreement requirements for the property not to remain unoccupied for more than 31 days and to avoid the risk of squatters.lease

I approached the estate agents whose advice was that the tenancy should terminated, the contract specifying that no sub letting is allowed and that he would be liable for the new lease agreement costs and rental payments until it has be successfully re-let.

Any advice?

Louise


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Comments

Neil Patterson

14:49 PM, 4th May 2016, About 8 years ago

Hi Louise,

I personally would go with your agents suggestion and start a fresh.

Just do an article search on P118 for subletting and I think it will scare you off.

Yvette Newbury

14:53 PM, 4th May 2016, About 8 years ago

I agree with Neil, it's a long time to bend the rules for your new tenant (6 months). If this had occurred after the first 6 months+ then you might consider it, but you don't yet know your tenant to be able to assess how it will work. Certainly the current tenant will be liable for your costs.

AnthonyJames

10:21 AM, 5th May 2016, About 8 years ago

I agree with Neil too. There are too many things that can go wrong with sub-letting.

However, could the tenant not ask his employers to cover his UK rent for this six month period, especially if they are not covering his rent in the overseas country? It's a bit of a liberty, expecting him to drop everything and move abroad for such a relatively short period and without appropriate compensation. They surely can't be expecting him to pay double rent, both on his UK and overseas flat, or expect him to move out of his UK accommodation, store his furniture somewhere, then face the hassle of finding a new flat when he comes back. Any reasonable employer should be covering at least one of the accommodation costs, and your tenant should be insisting on this.

If the employers are offering to cover his rent in his new location, then arguably you should refuse to release the tenant from his contract and require him to continue paying rent to you: he was always expecting to incur this cost, so if he is allowed to sub-let, he will be profiting from the situation as he won't be paying any housing costs in both the UK and overseas (and having his UK furniture stored for free too).

Puzzler

20:28 PM, 8th May 2016, About 8 years ago

Can the new tenant not just be added on to the agreement, new or variation? Then it isn't subletting. My agent has done this for me on occasion.

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