Along with the upcoming peer-to-peer rental opportunities, the growing demand for subletting homes using sites such as Airbnb has seen an increase in recent years. While homeowners can rent out rooms or even their entire homes to short-term occupants if they choose, it’s an entirely different story if one of your own “residents” starts subletting your East Downtown rental home.
Majority of leases frowns upon subletting especially if it is done without the owner’s consent, ergo a resident that has engaged in short-term rentals of your property has automatically violated the terms of the lease and in some cases, local statute or rules of the community. Reality is, despite knowing this some individuals will opt to do it still, posing as the primary resident of a rental home with the intentions of using the property as part of a larger Airbnb business, in which they rent multiple different properties and then sublet those for profit.
If you discover subletting activity in one of your properties, you definitely ought to put a stop to it as soon as possible. A resident subletting your property puts you at risk of increased liability, property damage, and legal consequences, to mention a few.
For example, if an individual were to sublet a room in your rental home from your resident and then fall and break their ankle in the shower, not only will your insurance not cover the accident, but as the owner, you could be sued for their medical bills and other costs. That is the trouble with subletting – the owner bears the brunt of any legal or personal liability involved.
A property owner in New York discovered this the hard way. In 2017, he learned that his residence had been using his rental home as an Airbnb rental for months after the neighbors filed several complaints about the noise and the steady stream of strangers going in and out. When the city investigated, they found that not only had the resident violated occupancy laws and created a public nuisance (a criminal offense in New York) but also that the resident had not paid the proper local taxes on the short-term rental income. But it was the owner, and not the ‘resident,’ who was sued by the city and forced to pay thousands of dollars in fines. According to the law, the owner was responsible for everything that happened inside his property.
Horror stories like these show the importance of proper monitoring of your rental homes. The best way to protect yourself and your property to have a property management company keeping tabs on your properties for you. At Real Property Management Heritage, we have a variety of property maintenance system intended to check for unauthorized use of a rental home, and we have the expertise to handle any necessary actions if such use is uncovered. Please contact us online or call us at 832-708-8157 for more information.
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.
