LA Apartments: Should I Sub Lease?
LA Apartments & The Consequences of Subleasing
If you’re searching for LA apartments for rent then the idea of sub leasing may have crossed your mind as well.
Why would you want to sub lease?
A common answer is to “get an idea” of a neighborhood before you truly commit yourself to it.
For example, without finding beverly hills apartments for rent and living in the area first, how would you know if you’d really like living in Beverly Hills?
There are hundreds of LA apartments scattered across Los Angeles County and it makes sense why sub leasing may make sense.
As a top apartment realtor Los Angeles, I’m going to provide you with information on why I strongly believe you should rent LA apartments right off the bat – instead of subleasing.
* To clarify, I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.
If you would like to know what your true legal rights are please contact a real estate lawyer.
Use this information at your own risk and note it is my personal opinion and what I have seen happen countless times.
The best advice I can give is to talk with a lawyer first if you plan to sublease.
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What Does Sublease Mean?
A sublease is similar to a regular lease which is an agreement to allow a certain individual or even a company to temporarily occupy the space.
As a result, the tenant will make regular rent payments.
However, with a sub lease the tenant leasing the space from the original landlord is now, effectively, turning the lease over to another individual who will now occupy the space.
Why shouldn’t you be looking at finding someone to sublease your apartment?
Sub leasing a condo, apartment (or anything similar) where you are the lessee, to another person, in most cases is not legal.
Only the owner of a property has the legal right to lease their property out.
To clarify, this means that if you are leasing from the landlord, in most cases do not have the right to sublease Los Angeles apartments.
Therefore think about it – can you sublease an apartment?
If you are the one looking to sub lease from someone, know you’re taking on 100% of the risk.
When you are looking for top realtors near me in Los Angeles, you need a real estate agent with the knowledge and ethics to help you navigate your apartment searches.
Tip: Looking to sublease? There really isn’t such a thing as a “sublet realtor”. It’s more of a buzz word that grew out of the popularity of subleasing.
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There are a number of things that can go wrong when subleasing in Los Angeles.
As a result, you may not have legal rights when something goes wrong.
Most leases have a statement in them about sub leasing.
For example, mine have said:
- “Lessee shall not assign this lease nor sublet the leased premises without lessor’s prior written consent….”
This statement, or something similar, is in most of the leases that I have seen.
You can interpret this how you will.
However, I wanted to provide you some scenarios that could affect you if you are the one doing the sub lease, with the individual on the actual lease with the landlord.
Scenarios that could occur when subleasing apartments in Los Angeles:
- Since you are not on the lease for the apartment, the person that is on the lease could take your rent, go pay all their other bills first, get evicted and go on about their life
- If the person that is on the lease does not pay the rent, you could be locked out of the unit. The landlord only has to give items back, like your clothes, to the authorized person for that property. That would be the person that you sublet with. Since you are not the authorized person the landlord may even keep your clothes. The landlord now has the right to sell off all item to cover unpaid rents.
These are all possible scenarios.
Not saying that anyone you are looking to live with would do this to you, but you just never know.
It is always in the persons best interest to be on a lease.
I know that going though the back door and doing sub leasing with LA apartments always sounds better.
However, in the long run though it can bite you and cost you a lot more than if done the right way.
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As an apartment realtor in Los Angeles, I have witnessed this in a real life scenario.
A friend of mine moved from Texas to NYC.
She contacted someone she found online to sub lease an apartment and gave the person the first and last month’s rent plus a deposit.
Which equated to over $12,000.
After a few days of living in the apartment, she went to work, came home later to found herself locked out of the apartment.
She tried to call the person that had sublet the apartment to her.
That person never answered the call.
After some digging my friend was able to find the contact information for the landlord of the apartment.
Come to find out this person had not paid any rent in several months.
She moved out the apartment and “sub leased” it to my friend and the person took all of the money and never caught up with their rent.
The Lessee vanished!
This is also bad for the person that was on the lease since the landlord would keep any deposit the original person made and then put the any outstanding rent on her credit.
My friend explained the situation to the landlord.
He was nice and let her back into the apartment to get all of things.
However, remember that since my friend was not on the lease the landlord did not have to let her into the apartment or give her back ANY of her things.
On the other hand, she was out the $12,000.
To sum up, beware if you plan to sublease LA apartments.
As a LA realtor, I can help with your home or apartment searches – trying to find some of the coolest apartments in Los Angeles?
Let me help you discover them.
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