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 your home can only be used by a single family and cannot be let out for a short 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’s consent.

However, they all make it clear that your home cannot be used for business purposes. This means that you may not, under any circumstances, let your property through commercial websites such as Airbnb and Booking.com.

Additionally, you cannot use your home as a house of multiple occupations.

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

If you're a leaseholder

If you own 100% of your home, you should be able to sublet without any issues.

However, we always need to check your lease terms to make sure there are no hidden restrictions.

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.

View our full list of administration fees (PDF).

To register your interest, email our Subletting team.

We’ll reply by sending you a Subletting Occupancy form. Please complete the form and return it 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 terminate their tenancy if they breach the lease terms.

We can take legal action against you as the leaseholder if we receive complaints or have concerns that lease conditions are not being kept.

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.

We have a panel of independent conveyancing solicitors panel (PDF) who would be willing to act for you and they all offer preferred rates to L&Q residents.

If you're a shared owner or equity loan holder

If you’re a shared owner or 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, email our Subletting team.

Our complete guide to shared ownership

View (PDF)

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