One of the surprises of the budget was a small paragraph about subletting.
It was in a section called ‘Support for the sharing economy’.
It may be worth quoting the whole section so you can see it in context:
Support for the sharing economy
1.193 The government wants to ensure that Britain is the global center for the sharing economy, enabling individuals and businesses to make the most of their assets, resources, time and skills through a range of online platforms.
This Budget therefore announces a comprehensive package of measures that will break down barriers, create opportunities for sharing, and unlock the potential of this dynamic and growing area. Building on the recommendations of the independent review of the sharing economy, the government will:
make it easier for individuals to sub-let a room through its intention to legislate to prevent the use of clauses in private fixed-term residential tenancy agreements that expressly rule out sub-letting or otherwise sharing space on a short-term basis, and consider extending this prohibition to statutory periodic tenancies
enable government employees to use sharing economy solutions to book accommodation and transport when travelling on official business, where this represents value for money
encourage Local Authorities to use their business rates discretionary relief powers to support the sharing economy, including shared workspaces and makerspaces 1.194 The sharing economy also presents an opportunity to drive local growth and deliver local public services more innovatively and efficiently.
To demonstrate the benefits of the sharing economy the government will launch two pilots in Leeds City Region and Greater Manchester in 2015-16, to trial local sharing initiatives in the areas of shared transport, shared public space, and health and social care.
1.195 These and other initiatives are set out in the government’s response to the independent review of the sharing economy.
There has been a lot of criticism of this proposal for example this post in Property Industry Eye which raises issues relating to rent to rent and HMOs.
However budget paragraph reads to me more like a desire to allow tenants to take in lodgers (as is often permitted in social tenancies) or run a modest B&B business.

Here is a question to the blog clinic from Marjorie (not her real name) who is a landlord.
I want to have my property valued. I have asked my tenant to let me know when it would be convenient to have an agent visit to do this. She does not respond.
Am I within my rights to give her notice of when I want to have the valuation done and go ahead and let myself into the premises?
I don’t want to do this and would much prefer to have an amicable agreement with her. But would also like to know if I can force the issue if she doesn’t respond or co-operate.

Answer

First you need to check your tenancy agreement to see what it says about visits and inspection visits.
Most likely it will provide for inspection visits for viewing the condition of the property but not for visits for valuation purposes. This will mean that you do not have any legal right to access for this purpose.
Once you rent a property to a tenant, you lose most of your rights in respect of it (other than the right to receive rent and get the property back at the end of the tenancy). So far as access rights are concerned, you can only really go in without getting the tenants agreement first, in case of real emergency, for example if it is on fire.
Even if your tenancy agreement provides for access for the reason you require access (in this case for valuation purposes) you can’t just go in whenever you want.
If you were to go in without your tenants prior agreement for example, this could render you liable for prosecution for harassment and also for a claim for compensation for breach of the ‘covenant for quiet enjoyment’.
It is only fair to say that the landlords right to go in when authorized by the tenancy agreement but not the tenant, is a hotly contested issue and we had a long discussion about it here.
However notwithstanding some of the views expressed in the comments to that post, I am strongly of the view that a landlord would be MOST unwise to ever enter a property (save in emergency) without the tenants express permission.

This is even more important in your case as I suspect your tenancy agreement does not authorize this type of inspection visit.

In which case if you cannot persuade your tenant to allow access, you will need to either wait until she has vacated the property or see if the valuer can provide a valuation from viewing the property from outside.

Your rented property is a very valuable investment.Most property is now worth in excess of £100,000, which is a lot of money. If you are a buy to let landlord you will probably still be paying off the mortgage.
However if you let your property to tenants, you lose control over it. In a way, it is no longer yours. Your tenants can stay as long as they like, until such time as you get a Court Order for Possession and send the bailiffs round.
Even if they are not paying rent or are trashing the property. Or using it as a cannabis farm.
So it is CRUCIAL that the person you put in control of this very valuable asset is someone to be trusted. There are so many nightmare stories around (we will have an article on some of them later in this series).

References and credit checks

I read with amazement some time ago that a substantial proportion of landlords never check their tenants at all! (I have lost the reference but I can remember reading it very clearly).
This is madness! However good a judge of character you are – you cannot always spot the bad apples. Successful con men are very persuasive. That is why they are successful!

So please, please, make sure that at the very least you:

• Take references and follow them up
• Check their ID
• Double check all information provided to you (is that phone number their employer or their mate?), and
• Pay for credit referencing – for example with Tenant Verify or which will pick up any CCJs and credit issues.

Check your letting agents

If you use letting agents – make sure that they are doing this too – properly.
When I did eviction work, I acted for many landlords who had found out to their horror that only minimal checks had been done by their agents.
Over the course of this month we will be running several posts on various aspects of checking and referencing tenants. Watch out for them!