For landlords, illegal subletting is always a possibility no matter how well you may screen your tenants.
Unscrupulous tenants make extra money, whilst you only get the extra wear and tear and the potential for more uninsured property damage due to a guest not being on the lease, or because the property is being used commercially.
The recent proliferation of short term holiday rental platforms is making the problem worse.
Many sites use false addresses and list for very short periods in order to protect their hosts.
Here are some tips from some of our landlords that can help you catch out tenants who may be considering doing this in your property:
• Look for tourist and travel brochures in the property/rooms
• Look for tea/coffee equipment in the bedrooms
• Be suspicious of singles or couples looking to rent a large house or apartment
• Do a google image search on tenants to see if they show up on any Airbnb sites
• Be absolutely clear in the lease agreement and make sure that you include no-subletting clauses
• Ask your neighbours to alert you if they see a lot of extra activity
• You can use a monitoring service that checks the web for illegal and short term rentals
Use RealRenta to communicate with your tenants in real time.
RealRenta automatically dates and time stamps every interaction between you and the tenant.
Jason Gwerder
Tuesday, 26 March 2019
