All Forum Posts by: Joycel Portela

@Joycel Portela, first thing to think about is who is liable if things go wrong.

For example if the sub-tenant stops paying rent and destroys the place who is responsible to the owner? That would be your father-in-law. So, how will you ensure that your father-in-law is protected?!?

To me this just sounds risky and ill advised, BUT if I was going to do it (which I would not), I would sign a sub-lease with my father-in-law and provide him with a deposit of maybe 10x rent. So, if the rent is $1,500/month, I would give him $15k. Then I would proceed to sublet it.

If you don't give your father-in-law some sort of security in the advent of something bad happening it isn't really fair to him to be on the hook for the risk and not be sharing in any of the benefit. 

Hi Joyce, there's very limited information to base an opinion on here, but it looks like there's unfortunately no good way around it; you're an unauthorized occupant. In some jurisdictions that's called squatting, even if the rent is being paid! You've described what amounts to scamming the owner out of market rent. Please don't do this. 

The best course of action for you is to notify the landlord asap that you live there now and take the consequences of potential rent increase or notice to vacate. Letting it go under the radar any longer merely exposes you as well as your father in law to additional legal risks. Who knows, it sounds like they're pretty disconnected from what's going on over there, so it may just blow over.  But that's for the landlord to decide or ignore, not you. But at least you'll be protecting yourself by creating a paper trail of your notice of intentions in case you have to defend yourself in court some day. 

@Joycel Portela I wouldn't recommend doing anything without the owners consent. It's just bad business practice and not ethical.