Your livelihood as a rental property owner is heavily dependent on the kind of tenants you thoroughly screen for your Houston rental property, carefully sifting through until you find one you can trust. It is because of this that things can become problematic when tenants decide to sublet the rental house without your permission or knowledge. Setting the terms of your tenant’s stay in your rental home starts with clear language in the lease. If you find yourself with a tenant who violates the already well-articulated subletting policy, here’s how you can handle that.
Gather Evidence
If you have doubts that your tenant is subletting your property without permission, your first step should be to confirm your suspicions. The new tenant could simply be house-sitting the property (for whatever reason) and not necessarily subletting. Interviewing both tenants can be a great starting point. You can use this to document what they both have to say and gather more evidence so that you can reach an informed conclusion as to what is really going on.
You might want to ask for information from your neighbors, too. They can provide more details to paint a better view of the situation. If your tenant is using an app like Airbnb to sublet your property, you can simply go on the app and look for your property. If you do find it there, that can be evidence of the lease violation.
Give Notice of Lease Violation
If your research leads you to confirm that your tenant is indeed subletting, even when the lease specifically states against it, then you have to notify your tenant that they violated the lease. If in the course of your research you stumble upon other violations made by the tenant who is subletting, make it a point to include all of them so that you can build a strong case against the violation of the lease terms.
Remember that no matter who is living in the rental, and regardless of what agreement they have with your tenant, it is still your tenant that is responsible for upholding the lease agreement. So that the tenant can resolve the situation to comply with the lease, they are usually given time to do so in cases like this. After which, you should make a follow-up so you can know for sure if the subletting tenant is gone or not.
Take Legal Action, If Needed
If in any case, your tenant refuses to remove the person subletting the property, you can then begin the eviction process. Double-check with your state and local laws and follow them all — the statutes and rules — exactly as stated.
When you have a subletting tenant, things can become very complicated; so, you want to know what your rights are and how you can legally remove a subletting tenant without compromising yourself. It may differ from place to place, but in order for you to gain full rights and access to your rental property, you might have to evict both the tenant and the subletting tenant.
Your legal recourse will heavily depend on where your property is located, and what language is used in your lease. If your lease uses language that makes the policy of subletting sound ambiguous, you definitely have to clear that up. The best course of action is stopping it before it happens when it comes to preventing subletting.
Are you dealing with a subletting tenant right now? Let us help you. The property management professionals at Real Property Management West have the experience and legal knowledge to guide you through any lease violation situation, getting you back to business as usual as quickly and as painlessly as possible. Learn more about what we can do for property owners like you by contacting us online or calling us at 832-532-9800.
We are pledged to the letter and spirit of U.S. policy for the achievement of equal housing opportunity throughout the Nation. See Equal Housing Opportunity Statement for more information.
