How to Evict Tenants who are Subletting without Consent

This is a serious and fast growing problems – especially in the South East of England. Landlords should be extra cautious with regards to ‘tenants’ who rent their property, and sublet the individual rooms to as many people as possible. whilst this practice is illegal for social housing tenants, it is not illegal for private tenants (but only if they have the consent of the landlord – which is very rarely granted).

There is a similar trend called ‘Rent to Rent', although in this case its understood that the landlord has provided written consent to the tenant that they can sublet the individual rooms. If this consent has not been provided then its simply subletting without consent. Please be cautious with these schemes and check with your mortgage lender and insurance provider that you are covered.

This fast growing and very worrying trend emerging from the Private Rental Market whereby fraudsters are scamming landlords and letting agents in order to obtain a tenancy (usually for a large property) with the deliberate intention of dividing the property in to individual units which they sublet to multiple occupants.

Tenants subletting rooms to unchecked lodgers

There has also been a large rise in the number of tenants subletting bedrooms to lodgers (short and long term). This is very risky, as the landlord is unaware of the additional people living at their property and has not had the opportunity to carry out necessary reference checks. So not only do the additional occupants cause (in most cases) overcrowding which leads to additional property damage and anti-social issues – but they may also be potentially unsavoury individuals, the problem is, the landlord just doesn't know. Some landlords refer to these as Ghost Tenants.

Removing tenants who are subletting without authorisation should be done quickly, these are one of our most frequent types of cases so rest assured we are highly experience with these matters and hold a 100% success rate for evictions tenants who sublet.

Tenants subletting the entire property at a higher price

The current property shortage has placed enormous pressure on an already strained rental market. As tenants seek to find accommodation unscrupulous individuals have been exploiting this shortage by subletting property without consent, both within the private rental market and the social housing sector.

This can take various forms, from a tenant signing for a property on the pretence that they want to live there and then subletting rooms out to various other tenants and sometimes using it as holiday lets. It can also involve a tenant letting a property and then renting it on to subtenants at a higher price or tenants renting a property and sub-letting it into criminal gangs, illegal immigrants, who use the property for illegal activities, perhaps drugs.

Tenants subletting individual rooms of the property

The fraud committed can be two fold, firstly the signing of a property and subsequent subletting of individual rooms, the fraud encompasses two main elements; firstly by subletting the property; secondly by masquerading as a landlord to the people who rent the individual rooms, most of whom as totally unaware that the “landlord” is not in fact the true landlord.

Evictions SouthEast have recently evicted a “tenant” who signed a tenancy agreement for a large family home, under the pretence that it was for him and his family - The landlord recalls how well spoken he was, and how he wanted to move closer to a popular Private School that his 5 daughters went to. It was all a sham - the tenant was a conman, who in fact divided the large 6 bedroomed property in to no less than 12 individual sublets. To evict a tenant who is subletting please contact us as soon as possible.

Property damage caused by subletting the rental property

The problems for landlords when dealing with tenants who sublet are that the person in the property is not who they are believed to be, leading to potential issues around debt, accountability and maintenance of the property, especially property damage caused by tenants. Landlords are often unsure of where to turn if they find that their seemingly trustworthy tenant has committed a fraudulent offence.

For experienced eviction experts, such as Evictions SouthEast, the solution can be resolved a lot quicker than you might expect. Upon receiving the tenancy details and issues, we will immediately commence legal action which typically results in eviction proceedings through the courts.

Legally evicting tenants and sub-tenants

In the cases of subletting, it is highly unusual for the matter to be resolved by dealing directly with the “tenant” as most often they are serial tenancy fraudsters, who may well be subletting a string of properties. The good news is that subletting of a property is relatively easy to prove.

Evictions SouthEast are keen to raise the awareness of the issue, and call for an increase in sanctions for those found guilty, to the same degree as tenants who sublet social housing property.  

QUICK CONTACT

Evictions SouthEast has a dedicated team of legal personnel ready to help you with your tenancy problems. We offer a free initial case review to give you some helpful information on how best to proceed with the case and what the likely outcome will be. Should you wish to proceed we will take on your case immediately with our transparent 3 step eviction process all based on a fixed fee pricing structure.

Evictions South East have a 100% success rate to date.