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What You Should Know Before Subletting Your Apartment

What You Should Know Before Subletting Your Apartment

Editor’s note:  This is a guest post written by Cubert M., for abandonedcubicle.com

Not all that long ago, I was an Apartment dweller. Those were the days! I didn’t have to worry about mowing a lawn, raking leaves, or shoveling snow. After growing up living on a corner lot, I figured I was done with all facets of property maintenance for the rest of my living years.

Apartments are an ideal option for all walks of life in any financial situation. For me, apartment living was perfect because I had a roommate to share the rent expense with. I’m not sure I would’ve been able to buy my first house, were it not for the years building up a down payment – made possible by a shared living arrangement.

Subletting 101

There was one option I had NOT considered during that six year span at good ol’ Greenfield Apartments: Subletting. That’s basically when you re-rent your pad to someone else, sometimes within lease rules.

Maybe you have a temporary assignment overseas or out of state, but have several months left on your lease. Maybe you plan to get married and have a house to move into, again, with several months left on that lease.

There are all sorts of reasons why you might feel trapped by a long term apartment lease, and Subletting might seem like the way to go.

Think about it. Instead of having to pay for rent when you’re not even living in the apartment, you could let a friend or acquaintance shack up and pay you directly. What a great way to avoid the sunk cost of rent at an otherwise unused space!

But before you rush off to make easy money from your new sublet venture, you may want to consider the following…

Are Your Belongings Safe and Secure?

You can’t take everything with you on that six month work assignment to Geneva. For example: your furniture, bedding, and whatever non-portable electronics are likely being left behind. That’s right. You’ll be entrusting your fancy stereo and speaker system, LED TV, and foosball table to your new tenants.

We have a good friend who occasionally house-sits for us. Nothing more than a week or weekend at a time, mind you, but we figure we can trust her to take good care of our home.

Even though we continue to have her house sit, we know she occasionally has guests over. Recently we came home to find chocolate stains on our sofa pillows. The coffee press was damaged, and one of our Magic Bullet mixing cups got dinged up and rendered useless.

Despite those grin-and-bear-it issues, we’ll still have our house sitter friend sit for us, but it makes us wonder what condition our home would be in if we left for six months or more. Tornado Alley come to mind?

Do You Trust Your Tenant?

Whatever can go wrong just might go wrong

“Gee, they seemed like such nice people in the beginning…” is a common refrain. Then you discover that they:

  1.     Refuse to pay rent
  2.     Refuse to move out
  3.     They brought in a loud barking dog, or a cat (or three) who like to mark his (or their) territory

You get the idea. Unless you can trust this person (or persons) with your living space, don’t even think about subletting. And even if they are trustworthy, make sure to collect a healthy security deposit worth two month’s rent up-front.

It could be you’re subletting to your best friend in the whole wide world. Doesn’t matter. You’re trying to be a landlord here. Act like one, and collect that deposit! Oh, and don’t allow pets either. That’s just asking for trouble.

Does Your For-Reals Landlord Know??

Oh yes. If you get busted with a sublet arrangement when it’s explicitly prohibited by your lease, you can get into big, big trouble. As a landlord myself, I can tell you straight up that if I catch a tenant subletting, they’ll be evicted without hesitation.

Why so harsh? For one thing, insurance is fickle. If some accident were to occur with major damages or injury, there are going to be major issues. A signed lease protects the interest of both the landlord and the lessee.

If an outside party comes into the mix, all bets are off.

What if your apartment landlord allows sublets? You should still think twice. If some crazy unexpected calamity were to occur, would your renter’s property insurance still cover you? Ask your agent. You may not like the answer.

Alternatives

It really does stink to have to pay rent when you’re not even living under the roof you’re renting. But there are some options to consider before you give up all hope.

One option is to ask your employer to cover the cost of your rent while you’re away on a work engagement. If it’s over a month, it can’t hurt to ask.

Assuming this isn’t a work thing, check with your apartment landlord and see if there’s an option to sublet while you’re away. They may be willing to work with you, but likely will require a signed lease and deposit to the apartment/landlord (not you).

If you go forward with subletting, it might be worth the hassle to put your belongings into storage while you’re away. Sure, you’ll have to pay for the privilege of storing your stuff, but it’s a lot better than paying to replace broken or worn items, courtesy of your tenant.

The post What You Should Know Before Subletting Your Apartment appeared first on The Zumper Blog.



This post first appeared on The Zumper Blog | Rental Market Trends, Real Estat, please read the originial post: here

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