Subletting

Guidance for leaseholders, shared owners and equity loan holders who wish to sublet their home. This includes information about eligibility, costs and how to register your interest.

Holiday lets

As a leaseholder you should be aware of some of the restrictions on your lease with L&Q, such as the fact that your home can only be used by a single family, or that it cannot be let out for a short period of time.

The conditions attached to each lease are different, some will outright forbid short-term lets altogether, while others may allow lets that last more than six months, but only with the ‘landlord’ consent. However, they all make it quite clear that your home cannot be used for business purposes. This means that under no circumstances can a homeowner let their property through Airbnb, Booking.com or similar commercial websites. Furthermore, they cannot use their home as a house of multiple occupation (HMO).

Breaching the terms of a lease can have potentially serious consequences. The legal process starts with a formal notice and could progress up to court action to forfeit the lease, which effectively means the lease is terminated and you would lose your home.

Subletting for leaseholders

If you own 100% of your home and you wish to sublet it, you should be able to do so without any issues. However, we always need to check the terms of your lease to make sure there are no restrictions.

If your lease allows subletting, there is a simple and straightforward process to follow, detailed below.

There is a cost involved for us to review your lease and progress your subletting request – and depending on the terms of your lease, a Notice of Underlet may be required as well.

To see the full list of our administration fees, please read:

• L&Q’s homeowner administration fees (PDF)

To register your interest, please email our Subletting team.

You will then receive a Subletting Occupancy form, which you need to complete and return to us to begin the formal process.

Once you have our consent to sublet your home, we ask that you keep in regular contact with your tenant and that you terminate their tenancy if they breach the terms of the lease.

If we receive complaints or have concerns that your lease conditions are not being kept, we may need to take legal action against you as the leaseholder.

If your lease does not allow subletting, but we own the freehold of your property, we may be able to amend the lease via a Deed of Variation. This document legally and permanently amends your lease to allow you to sublet – subject to our requirements. Please note that you’ll be responsible for all costs involved, including your legal fees, our legal fees, and an administration fee for us arranging the Deed of Variation.

When we do not own the freehold, we’ll check our Head Lease to see if subletting meets the Freeholder’s requirements. However, we’ll be unable to amend your lease if the Freeholder does not allow subletting.

As an L&Q resident, you will also have access to and preferred rates for a panel of independent solicitors who could offer you guidance and support and who would be willing to act for you in these cases:

• L&Q's conveyancing solicitors panel (PDF)

Subletting for shared owners and equity loan holders

If you’re a shared owner or you bought your home with the help of an equity loan, your lease or legal charge does not permit you to sublet. 

That’s because we're obliged to protect the government funds provided to help you buy – by making sure the property is your main and only home.

We may consider a subletting request under extremely exceptional circumstances. For example, when:

• you accept a work secondment to a different location which requires you to move home and you’ll lose your job if you do not accept the offer*
• you're the next of kin or sole carer for a relative and need to provide full-time care (30+ hours per week)
• remedial building safety work is required on the building meaning that the property cannot be sold or is unmortgageable
• remedial building safety works required on the building are likely to last for more than 12 months

*Choosing to accept a job offer abroad or in another location is not classed as a job relocation.

We’ll only review requests in line with the above criteria and all requests are assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Please do not make any arrangements unless you've received our formal approval, as subletting requests are not guaranteed.

To make a request, please email our Subletting team.