Slough Borough Council

Having a lodger or sub-tenant in your home

As a council tenant, you have the legal right to sub-let part of your home, but you must get the council’s agreement in writing first.

What is sub-letting?

Sub-letting is where someone who is not part of your household when you first moved in, pays you rent to live in part of your home. They will usually do their own cooking and cleaning. If you do decide to sub-let part of your home you must continue to live there – you cannot sub-let the whole of the property.

Please make an application in writing to your housing officer to sub-let part of your home. You will need to provide details of the person you would like to sub-let to. Once we have received the application we will need to carry out some checks before we can give consent. We will need to make sure that the home will not be overcrowded and that the person who would like to rent from you does not have a track record of acting anti-socially or causing a problem for neighbours in the past.

The council reserves the right to refuse permission to sub-let to someone who has previously been evicted due to breach of their tenancy See your tenancy.

Once we have carried out the checks and there are no problems, we can then say yes to your request.

Do remember

If you sublet part of your home without our written permission you are breaking your tenancy agreement which may result in legal action being taken against you.

If you decide to sub-let and are in receipt of benefits – your entitlement may be affected.

Our standards

• We will acknowledge your request within 3 working days
• We will visit you within 15 working days and then make a determination in 2 days (unless we require further information)

If you want to find out more, call our customer services team on 01753 875491 / 01753 875492 or e-mail tenants@slough.gov.uk. We are happy to help and will arrange for an application form to be sent out to you.