What is a subtenancy?

A sub-tenancy arises when a tenant creates a tenancy out of her/his interest in the lease, but remains in the position of tenant against the landlord.

The relationship between the parties is:

Landlord » Head tenant » Subtenant

This ladder of letting does not have to be restricted to three parties. There can be any number of subtenancies of a dwelling. There may also be several joint tenants or joint landlords at each level in the ladder but no subtenant can have greater security of tenure than the head tenant(s).

Many tenants rent accommodation from landlords who are themselves tenants of higher landlords. For example a local authority may rent a house to a tenant who then sublets the house to a subtenant. In these cases the middle tenant is known as the 'head-tenant' or principal tenant. In this section the terms 'landlord', 'head tenant' and 'subtenant' will be used to identify the different parties.