Your livelihood as a rental property owner is heavily dependent on the kind of tenants you thoroughly screen for your Brandon rental property, carefully sifting through until you find one you can trust. Due to this, when a tenant sublets the rental house without your permission or knowledge, things can get very problematic. Setting the terms of your tenant’s stay in your rental home starts with clear language in the lease. Should you encounter a tenant who violates the subletting policy even when it’s already been presented clearly, you can pay attention to the following tips for handling a situation such as that.
Gather Evidence
If you are convinced 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 Airbnb to sublet your rental, you can try searching for your property on the app as evidence to show a violation of the lease.
Give Notice of Lease Violation
If your research does lead to the confirmation of a tenant subletting, even when the lease clearly articulates against it, then your next best move is to inform the tenant that they violated the lease. If there are other violations that you discovered through your research, make sure to include all of them so that you can make a strong case against a subletting tenant who is not upholding the lease terms.
Regardless of who is living in the rental, even if they have an agreement with your tenant, it is still your tenant who is responsible for upholding the lease agreement. Generally, a tenant is given time to correct the situation and go back to compliance with their lease. Once the time has gone, make sure you do a follow-up in order to ensure that the subletting tenant is no longer there.
Take Legal Action, If Needed
If your tenant does not comply with the terms to remove the subletting person from the property, you may start to think about the eviction process. Remember to keep yourself updated with your state and local laws so that you can follow all the statutes and rules to the dot.
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. Though it depends on where you are located, it could be possible that you have to evict the tenant and the subletting tenant before you can take back full rights and access to your rental property.
The legal recourse that you can take is the one that is paved by the location of your property and the language of 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.
If you’re in a situation where you have to confront a subletting tenant, you can always seek help. The property management professionals at Real Property Management Freedom have the experience and legal knowledge to guide you through any lease violation situation, getting you back to business as usual 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 813-867-2667.
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