Need advice on Tenants request to sub-lease property

Hi,

I rented my townhouse few months back to a group of three professionals who work near the place. I signed a lease with them. While renting my place, they mentioned that they would have one more room mate later on. I was fine with it and told them that person has to be added to the lease.

Few weeks back, they added one more room mate and one of the persons in the lease found work elsewhere, but found another room mate to replace her.

I sent them an addendum that would remove one room mate and add the other two. The original folks who were in the lease are asking if we can remove the person on the lease and then they would sub-lease the townhouse to the replacements. They do not want the new folks to sign any kind of documents with me…

I went through my lease agreement and it does not mention anything about sub-leasing. :woman_facepalming: I would appreciate if others can provide advice around the following:

  1. Are there any downside of letting tenants sub-lease ?

  2. Should I change the original lease agreement to incorporate any terms around sub-lease…?

Thanks
…M

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Subleasing : NFW.

The property you have is a $$$$$$ asset. You should have final say on who gets to live in the property - no one else.

One problem tenant will cost you soooooooo much $$$$.

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I echo this advice.

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Something is fishy if they don’t want the new tenant to sign anything. Also, you should be able to do a proper vetting of the new tenants to protect yourself.

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It is $$$$$ :grinning:

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Yes, Amend the contract - No subleasing. Give written notice.

Any one you need to include in the lease, ask proper scrutiny,i.e. credit check, income verification…all tenants scrutiny process. If there is any issue/flaw, reject it. You need have the person in the lease so that you are protected later.

Any reason not to say “sublease must include landlord’s approval”?

Don’t know which lease agreement template you are using, but the standard one from the California Association of Realtors already has language regarding subleasing as follows:

ASSIGNMENT; SUBLETTING: Tenant shall not sublet all or any part of Premises, or assign or transfer this Agreement or any interest in it, without Landlord’s prior written consent. Unless such consent is obtained, any assignment, transfer or subletting of Premises or this Agreement or tenancy, by voluntary act of Tenant, operation of law or otherwise, shall, at the option of Landlord, terminate this Agreement. Any proposed assignee, transferee or sublessee shall submit to Landlord an application and credit information for Landlord’s approval and, if approved, sign a separate written agreement with Landlord and Tenant. Landlord’s consent to any one assignment, transfer or sublease, shall not be construed as consent to any subsequent assignment, transfer or sublease and does not release Tenant of Tenant’s obligations under this Agreement.

You should look into what else is missing on your lease agreement ASAP.

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Was puzzled too. Thought most of us use standard template.

This is just fyi. If you are not a CAR member, do not use the CAR lease form. If tenant has issues later on and you need to enforce the lease, CAR lawyers may be at your door.

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Correct, this is copy right violation, exactly one of my property managers informed me when he took over the lease from me.

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Well, I don’t know anything about leasing, I am a home owner, but I would tell these tenants that let’s say as an example, that you charge $3K for the lease, so, any other tenant is worth $1K.

You are there to make money, turn your unit into a money making machine.

Thanks a lot for all your comments. This is very much appreciated.

I did not use the CAR realtors lease agreement because it does not have anything about default rent increase after the end of the contract period. I wanted to have an automatic rent increase if it is month to month. Good to know that only members of the CAR can use this agreement.

My rental agreement does state that only family members of the current tenants can stay in the property. Anyone else can stay only with the written approval of the landlord.

Apart from being able to pay rent, are there anything that should be concerning. All the new folks are working in hi-tech companies and they have shared their LinkedIn Profiles with me. They should be making money…

The current tenants mentioned that these new people can break the lease at anytime and leave anytime as long as they find replacements.

Bad move. If you end up evicting those tenants, their family members may have “established” their residency as tenants from a legal perspective and you may have to pay extra heads to leave.

Are you a landlord now?

Yes I am the landlord now…

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Does that apply outside of SF?

This is not unique to SF. Many locales adopted some kind of tenant relocation ordinance (although probably not as comprehensive as SF). For example, RWC, SJ, MV etc. have eviction compensation for tenants.

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Thanks for the heads up.

Don’t care if CU is not one of them.