Sub-letting clause could spell trouble for landlords

Following the Chancellor’s budget, tenant eviction company, Landlord Action, has expressed grave concern over Government plans to allow private tenants to sub-let from their tenancies by preventing landlords from using clauses in residential tenancy agreements that expressly rule out sub-letting.

Paul Shamplina, Founder of Landlord Action, says “This appears to have slipped in under the radar which, if it goes ahead, will throw up a magnitude of problems in the buy-to-let industry. We have never seen so many sub-letting cases going to court because of unscrupulous tenants trying to cream a profit from a property they have rented.

We experience continual problems with tenants taking out tenancy agreements and then, in some instances, not even moving into the property themselves, but putting up partitions and sub-letting to as many people as possible.  They draw up separate agreements and trick sub-tenants into thinking they are the landlord.  By the time landlords find out, damage to properties from over-crowding can run into thousands, and the tenant who holds the legitimate tenancy agreement is no-where to be found. 

The detail is yet to be revealed but, in my opinion, there should have been a period of consultation with the industry before this was announced. This is not the way to fix the housing shortage, and in fact will have quite the opposite effect if more and more landlords are exposed to the risk of nightmare sub-tenants.  Giving landlords even less control over their own property by preventing them from instilling clauses which prevent sub-letting could drive more good landlords out of the marketplace.”

Landlord Action is currently exposing the level of the sub-letting problem in a Channel 5 documentary due to air in a few months.