What is a sublease? Generally speaking, if the original tenant transfers all of his rights under his lease contract to somebody else (a “third party”), it's an “assignment”, but if he transfers something less, it's a sublease. Note that it doesn't matter what you call it; a sublease is still a sublease even if you call it an assignment. So if you rent a house for a year, live there for 5 months, and then turn around and lease the remaining 7 months to a third party, it's an assignment. If you lease it for 6 months or less (or lease the entire remaining 7 months but only lease one room instead of the whole house), it's considered a sublease in most states.

If you were a landlord, you'd probably prefer that your tenant assign rather than sublease, because if your tenant assigns, then if you tenant moves to Tahiti and your tenant's assignee fails to perform his lease obligations, then you can go after the tenant's assignee for failure to meet at least some of the original lease. obligations. But if your tenant subleases, then you can't go after the sublessee at all (only your tenant can), and you're going to have to sue your tenant because you have no legal relationship with the sublessee (this immunity is not absolute of course - you can still sue the sublessee if he trashes your house, for example, and you can even evict the sublessee and if your original lease with your tenant forbade him to sublease).

The disadvantage of being a sublessee is that if the landlord fails to perform his obligations in his lease contract with the original tenant (he refuses to repair the house, for example), there's nothing you can do about it – the original tenant acts as your landlord and you'll have to go after him for satisfaction, even if he lives in Tahiti.

So, in a nutshell, for most purposes a sublessee is a tenant of the original tenant, the original tenant is the landlord of the sublessee, and the sublessee and the original landlord have no legal relationship at all.

Got that? OK, now tell me – how many sublessees does it take to screw in a light bulb…?

DISCLAIMER: The following is intended for reference only and does not constitute legal advice.