If you follow trends in housing, you see that furnished housing rentals and corporate apartment rentals have spiked over the past few years – particularly in popular urban locations. However, they are also used for longer holiday homes, too, and so it is important that property owners know all of the different issues that can occur when offering up such housing options. One of the most difficult is the issue of subletting.
It is usually a given that furnished housing rentals are not permanent or long term. Most corporate apartment rentals are completely furnished, as are many seasonal rentals. The problems begin when the different groups or individuals who have taken the rentals find they do not need the premises for the length of the contract. Rather than pay for an empty property, they opt to secretly sublet their furnished housing rentals and corporate apartment rentals.
Typically, this goes against the terms of the lease or contract signed and is actually illegal. In fact, as one journalist explained, “unauthorized subletting could expose properties to a whole host of risks, including out-of-control parties, uninsured property damage, disorderly conduct, drug use, and other aberrations.”
Yet, monitoring for it is a timely and often impossible task. You cannot sit outside your furnished housing rentals each day to be sure only the approved renters are entering and exiting. What can you do about it? You nip it in the bud!
One company in Australia found the perfect approach to overcoming subletting of corporate apartment rentals through the use of online monitoring. After all, to rent out a property means listing it online. The firm created software and techniques that enable them to identify properties their clients indicate as already leased or rented, should they appear as “for let” or as available for rent on any of the most common sites used to list them.
In fact, many property management companies are already using similar methods to ensure that their clients’ corporate rentals are not becoming victim to subletting. If you have any properties you offer for short term rentals and as furnished rentals, it is wise to have a way to monitor for illegal subletting. You can ask your property management company about such options or you can make a point of running a search, once each week for the address, location and even photos of the property you listed. Often, this can turn up illegal subletting before it occurs and spare you the headaches of trying to evict those illegally occupying the property.
