Tenants sublet house without permission

GGTrek wrote: »

This is 100% correct, the govvie legislative effort is trying to force down on landlords very risky occupiers as tenants (in order to avoid its social duties!). Subletting is rampant in Dublin due to the fact that in my experience many people applying for a tenancy (I received hundreds of applications over the years, so I do have a representative sample) would not pass an half decent vetting process, so in their desperation they try to short-circuit it. The most desperate ones are irresponsible people coming to Dublin who should have stayed in their original locations (being in Ireland or elsewhere) and would be very unreliable tenants.

A LL should avoid at all costs fixed term tenancies of more than 5 months among other things in order to have an easier route to evict illegally subletting tenants which in my experience will appear in the very first few months of the tenancy. Evicting for subletting without permission a part 4 tenant is easier said than done in Ireland due to the massive tenancy protection laws (in the UK they serve a no reason section 21 and they know that in a few months the bailiffs will knock). It is really hard work, probably more difficult than anti-social behaviour, because in the second case you will usually have the victims of the anti-social behaviour coming to testify at the hearing or providing statements, while for subletting it is very hard to get witnesses or statements.

A few do-gooders (with other people assets of course) in this thread do not understand that a non vetted illegal occupier represents a potential big risk to the LL and (sometimes) to its neighbours, just a short list of the risks to illuminate the minds of the do-gooders (who say that as long as rent is paid things are fine):
- the LL does not know the identity and the suitability of who is staying in his property. The illegal occupier could be a criminal, a person who on its own cannot afford the rent, a person with a very bad credit history or that previously caused damage and is prone to cause damage
- the illegal occupier has no contractual agreement with the LL in the LL very own property, the lease clauses do not apply to him/her, damage he/she causes to the property would be very difficult to recover, even worse trying to pursue any anti social behaviour. How do you take to court or to the RTB a person whose name you do not even know? The LL only recourse is against the main tenant and it is a difficult one at best.
- If the main tenant leaves the LL is effectively left with a squatter in its own property
- in case of accidents at the property, there might be serious problems with the insurance
- finally the fact that the main tenant/s decided that the lease was just a worthless piece of paper is very indicative of a frame of mind that they are prone to break other rules (and this is much more likely to happen in these situations, in the only two cases I had of non vetted subletting this included damages, anti-social behaviour, breach of the peace, non payment of bills)

I lived in quite a few countries and I noticed that usually a leftie or a distorted Catholic ideology (Ireland has got plenty of both) creates self-delusional people with double standards so I shall give the do-gooders a hint of my own moral view: illegal subletting is a massive infringement of freedom of contract, the LL has exactly the same right as the tenant to enter into a contractual agreement with people of his/her choice, without such choice being taken away by the govvie or the main tenant subletting without permission!