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If you are a tenant and you rent all or part of your home to someone else, this is called subletting. The person who pays you rent is a subtenant.
Why would I want to sublet my home?
You may want to sublet your home because you need to go away for a period of time due to:
If you have a Scottish Secure Tenancy or a Short Scottish Secure Tenancy, you can sublet all or part of your home but only if you have our permission in writing. If you move out of your home without our permission and don't plan to return, you may lose your tenancy rights. This is because you can only be a Scottish Secure Tenant or a Short Scottish Secure Tenant while the property is your only or main home.
If you want to sublet all or part of your home, you must fill in an application form. You can get an application form from your local area housing office or from our website at www.moray.gov.uk. For information about your local area housing office, please see the end of this leaflet.
We will send you a decision, in writing, within 28 days of getting your application.
Before we can consider your application, you must give us all of the information that we ask for on the form. If you have a joint tenancy, you must get the agreement of the other joint tenants to sublet your home. If you have a husband, wife or civil partner, you must get their agreement to sublet your home. Civil partnership is a new legal relationship that can be formed by two people of the same sex.
Sometimes, we may arrange to interview you to collect more information. When we have all of the information we need, we will give your our decision in writing. We will either give you our agreement or refuse your application. If we refuse your request we will tell you why. We will not unreasonably withhold our permission. If we don't respond to you within 28 days, please consider that we have given our permission to your application to sublet your home.
When will you not give me permission to sublet my home?
We will not give you permission to sublet your home if we have justified reasons for doing so, such as:
Also, we may not give you our permission if you do not give us all the information we need to make our decision within 28 days. If we do not give our permission because of this, you can apply again when you have all of the information.
What are the conditions of subletting my home?
If we give you our permission to sublet your home, we will tell you about the conditions in the letter of consent. The following conditions will apply.
If you apply to sublet all of your home, we will only give our permission for 6 months. After this, we will review the application and may give you our permission to sublet for a further 6 months, after which the sublet will end. The maximum time we will give you our permission to sublet all of your home is 12 months.
At the end of the sublet, you must return to live in your home. If you do not want to live in your home, we will tell you how to end your tenancy.
You may get permission to sublet part of your home for longer. If you have a Short Scottish Secure Tenancy, the sublet will not be longer than the length of your tenancy.
The amount of rent you charge should be reasonable. This does not mean that the amount of rent you charge cannot be more than the amount of rent you pay us. You may need to charge extra, for example, to cover costs of more furniture and insurance. We will assess each case individually.
You must get our permission in writing before you increase the amount of rent you charge the subtenant.
Paying rent and conditions of tenancy
If you sublet your home, you will still be responsible for paying rent to us, for any damage to the property caused by the subtenant, and if the subtenant breaks the tenancy conditions in any other way, for example, antisocial behaviour.
The subtenant, and those members of their household who you told us about in your application, may live in your home. At the end of the sublet, you must either return and live in the house as your main home, or end your tenancy. If you don't, we may take action to repossess the property.
You must tell us about any change in circumstances relating to the sublet.
If you decide that you no longer want to sublet your home, you must ask the subtenant to leave. This is your responsibility and not ours. If your tenancy ends and the subtenant stays in your home, we will take legal action to remove them. We may charge you the costs involved.
What if I don't agree with the decision?
You can ask the area housing manager to review your application. If you are not satisfied with this decision, you can appeal in writing to the senior area housing manager.
You can raise court proceedings at any time. The court must order us to agree to the application unless it considers that the refusal is reasonable.
For more information, please contact your local area housing office.