Subletters

Hello all future tenants:

I frequently get questions about subletting from many of you so I wanted to explain the sub-letting process. Please see the Sublet form n our website, which needs to be filled out by you for each sub-letter that you have. This sublet form is just a simple form to let me know who will be in the house and for what period of time. It also requires your initials stating that you have gained the permission of all of your housemates for this particular sub letter. I don’t need all your housemates initials just yours but you are promising with your initials that you have gained permission from every one of your housemates. The reason you need that permission is that some of your housemates may be having to live with this person and they only agreed to live with you when signing the lease not this new random person so they need to give their consent that they are ok with that. Additionally if you are on a joint lease with other tenants you are all jointly and severally liable which, in relations to sub-letters, technically means that you are all liable for each other’s sub-letters as well as your own. So any damages created by any of the sub-letters would come out of the security deposit paid by the group of original tenants. Now usually if the damage is clearly the fault of one tenant, or in this case the sub-letter belonging to a particular tenant, then I would just take the cost of those damages out of the share of that person’s security deposit. However it is possible that the damages created by that sub-letter cost more than the individual tenant’s share of the security deposit in which case some of that cost would be borne by other tenant’s security deposit share. Also I reserve the right not to track security deposit by individual at all in which case the damages could just be divided equally amongst all tenant’s security deposit portion. So as you can see this is an additional reason that all tenants have to approve all sub-letters in an apartment.

Another important thing to note about subletting: during a sublet YOU remain my tenant while the sub letter is YOUR tenant. They are not my tenant and I really have nothing to do with them other than signing off on them on the sublet form. I do have to approve them but unless I know some particular reason why they shouldn’t be approved I will always approve them since you are responsible for them. You are solely responsible for anything your tenant does while in residence (damages for instance or trash tickets from improper trash placement or anything else under the lease) I expect them to follow the terms of your lease but keep in mind that they haven’t signed your lease and it is highly recommended that you have them sign some kind of lease of your own making. For legal/liability reasons I cannot provide you with a copy of a lease to use for this purpose but I suggest you sign some kind of lease with them and also collect a security deposit from them because you will be responsible for any damages they create. Additionally during the term of their sub-tenancy they will pay their rent to you and you will pay your rent to me because you are my tenant and they are your tenant. If you want to have them pay their rent to me directly during their sub-tenancy that can be arranged but I charge a $10 per month surcharge for that service and would need to approve it.

And one final and very important part of subletting: If you are having a sub-letter be the first person to move into your apartment it is recommended that you have one of the ACTUAL tenants come and inspect the apartment on the first day of the lease to fill out the “move in inspection form”. If none of the actual tenants are available to come and inspect the house at that time then you can give permission for the sub-letter to do the inspection for you but remember this means that if they don’t do a good job and they miss condition items that later result in charges to your security deposit, you have no recourse. Still it is better to have a sub-letter do the inspection than nobody at all because if the inspection is not done within a week of move in then you forfeit your right to the inspection and have no record of condition at move in. If you want to approve a sub-letter to do the move in inspection form I would need an email from every single tenant on the lease stating that this is acceptable to them. Without that, the inspection would just have to be forfeited as I can’t accept an inspection after people have been living there as they could cause damages during that time that were made after my maintenance and cleaning was completed.