Q–I have been attempting to sublet my apartment in the suburbs for the balance of my lease. I have been advertising, and I paid the landlord a subleasing fee, as is customary in the complex. This fee is supposed to be an administrative fee.
I have asked my landlord to do certain work to refurbish the apartment, but the landlord has refused, saying that all routine refurbishment is done on a strict schedule. This has hurt my ability to rerent the apartment. The landlord has also said that the sublease can only be for the remainder of my lease term and that the lease will not be extended so as to allow the subtenant to rent for an entire year.
What’s worse is what happened on a couple of occasions when I had potential subtenants for my apartment and then presented them to the landlord for approval. He turned around and rented vacant apartments in the complex to them, so I had to continue my search for subtenants.
Because any subtenant has to be approved by the landlord, what’s to prevent the landlord from continuing this practice? Also, how can I get the landlord to extend the lease term or make other concessions to assist in the subleasing process?
A–It’s clear that the landlord isn’t interested in assisting you in the subleasing process.
It may well be that he does maintenance on a strict schedule, because that enables him to maintain a budget for refurbishment and repairs. If the landlord started making repairs or refurbishing apartments each time a tenant chose to sublease an apartment, that work might be performed each seven or eight months for certain apartments. Over time, the cost to the landlord for that work would be significantly higher than the budgeted amount.
The landlord’s reluctance to extend the lease term indicates that he isn’t helping you sublet your apartment. He knows that if you don’t sublet, you are going to move at the end of the term of your lease and he will have to remarket the apartment–and may well face a vacancy for a number of months.
It would be to the landlord’s benefit to extend the term of your lease to accommodate a subtenant. In that way, he would know that for the extended period of time, the rent revenue will continue and there will be no reason to remarket the space. In addition, if the subtenant wants to remain after the expiration of the initial term, the landlord has a built-in lease renewal, without any cost for marketing.
If the landlord is unwilling to extend the term of the lease even though it is dictated by good business sense, he probably has some ulterior motive. You probably discovered that motive when the landlord appropriated your prospective subtenants.
The landlord is using your efforts at finding subtenants as a marketing tool to rerent his vacant apartments. That way, he is getting two apartments rented, yours and the vacant one he has been renting to your proposed subtenant.
Unfortunately for you, the landlord apparently has set up a system that discourages subleasing and creates an incentive for a proposed subtenant to rent the landlord’s vacant apartments.
By making the proposed subtenant apply, before you have an written commitment from the prospective subtenant, the landlord has contact with the subtenant and then may be providing incentives to get that subtenant to rent directly from him.
At the stage at which the landlord has contact with your proposed subtenant, you are in competition with the landlord, and the landlord has the means to beat you every time. The landlord can use rent abatements, the promise of longer terms, an offer to refurbish the apartment and a larger selection of apartments from which your proposed subtenant could choose.
This could all be construed as competition, and probably does not give you any right of legal action against the landlord. On the other hand, you might consider entering into a sublease agreement with the proposed subtenant before you submit the subtenant to the landlord for approval.
The landlord probably would not be able to steer your subtenant away if there was a written agreement. If your landlord still tried to rent directly to your prospective subtenant and the subtenant agreed to do it, the subtenant probably would be guilty of breach of contract and the landlord might be liable for interference with the contract.
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Robert A. Boron, a Chicago attorney who specializes in leasing matters, writes about landlord and tenant issues for the Tribune. Questions to him can be addressed to Rental Q&A, Your Place section, Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60611. He also can be reached by e-mail at rabltd@aol.com. Sorry, but he cannot make personal replies.
