Budget 2015 – Government intend to make it easier to sublet!

Reply to the comment left by "shakeel ahmad" at "20/03/2015 - 07:11":

-> "This means every time a sub letter is accepted by the tenant, a Landlord has to re register the deposit this includes the cost of registration time & the silly twenty odd pages to be printed/posted/tenant to sign & return to the landlord."

Nothing will have to be done to the deposit, as the lodger is not a party to the AST, therefore the relationship between the landlord and the tenant does not change!

If you tenant decides to take a deposit from the lodger, that is between the two of them an has nothing to do with the landlord.

Reply to the comment left by "Lynette Morris" at "20/03/2015 - 08:58":

Dear Lynette

Please see free to set up the petition and post a link to it here.

It may help if you post a draft here first so that members can add their input.
.

Reply to the comment left by "Ian Ringrose" at "20/03/2015 - 09:38":

Hi Ian,

Of course the relationship between tenant and landlord has changed if the tenant vets, agrees price and accepts a sub let. They are putting the landlord's property at risk and there is now someone in the property not subject to the AST as you point out. The sub let is a loose cannon for the landlord.

What liability will the sub let have for any damage? None to the landlord.

No wonder you cannot get insurance for this sort of risk, it is rife with problems that need addressing before it goes live.

I'm OK with landlords considering sub letting, but to be forced to do it, is a bit like forcing people to car share when driving. I would choose not to do it unless the financial incentive is high. And right now the financial incentive to landlords is additional cost with no upside.

Half baked comes to mind.

This sounds like an ill-thought-out idea which may well not survive the passage through Parliament if we make enough noise now, pointing out the problems that will ensue. I shall be emailing my Lib-Dem MP with my concerns and suggest all 118 members do likewise.

My present AST incorporates my head lease which says that my tenant is responsible for the financial cost of any action that results in the landlord paying a higher insurance premium. So if an additional policy to cover a sub tenant becomes available it would be at the expense of the primary tenant. The parallel is with adding an extra driver to your car insurance policy.

A more easily managed alternative to sub-letting which would achieve the Chancellor's sharing objective would be to have the additional resident added to the original AST by means of a Memorandum to the Agreement signed by the original tenant(s) and the additional tenant, making the additional tenant subject to all the terms and conditions of the original AST and covering any additional costs for extra insurance costs, residence permission vetting, etc and any rent alterations to cover extra wer and tear. The deposit could only be returned to the original tenant. If the original tenant wants to leave and the add-on wants to stay and can produce replacement co-tenants acceptable to the landlord, a new AST can be generated. My son used to work it that way with student and nurse tenants and it worked pretty well.

I deal regularly with sublettings of commercial premises. There is a substantial body of law on what constitutes reasonable grounds for refusing consent to an underletting. It is also quite costly for tenants as they have to pay the landlord's legal and managing agents' fees for considering the application for consent to sublet. These can easily run to £2000 on some transactions (and MUCH more if the Landlord uses a City law firm who won't get out of bed for that sort of money). The money usually has to be paid upfront or guaranteed by a solicitor's undertaking. Fees are payable whether or not consent is given or the subletting goes ahead.

I fail to see what problem the Government is trying to solve. Indeed given the move in recent years by Councils preventing subletting of Council houses at a profit to private renters, this policy is perverse.

In addition to the points others have made, what are the terms of these lettings to be? Suppose a Landlord, L, has given a tenant, T1 a 6 month AST. 2 months into it T1 wants to sublet to ST1. He cannot offer more than 4 months as his own lease ends then. However, under current law T1 cannot serve a s21 notice and get ST1 out before 6 months. Will L be able to get ST1 out any sooner? If no, then that may be reasonable grounds for L refusing consent to the subletting. If yes, then Parliament will have to blast a hole through the security of tenure legislation.

Why, Why, Why can’t people understand this is NOT about subletting, it is about a tenant being able to take a lodger.

The law of lodger rights are clear, basically they have none….

A few simple safeguards and this could be made to work. Play our cards right and we could even get a law that makes it a criminal offense to sublet without permission apart from taking ONE lodger while the tenant lives in the property as their only home.

Reply to the comment left by "Ian Ringrose" at "23/03/2015 - 10:39":

"Make it easier for individuals to ****sub-let**** a room through its intention to legislate to prevent the use of clauses in private fixed-term residential tenancy agreements that expressly rule out *****sub-letting**** or otherwise sharing space on a short-term basis, and consider extending this prohibition to statutory periodic tenancies.”

That definitely says sub-letting, Ian.

Reply to the comment left by "Paul Lucke" at "23/03/2015 - 11:00":

but its about sub-letting a room, not the whole property. that means taking in a lodger i would think.

Sub let/lodger, you'll still not get insurance for the property if it is a rental and you need landlord cover.

That's quite a hurdle....