Emotional support animals in a sublet

Work out who the landlord is

In a sublet the original tenant becomes your landlord, and the building owner remains theirs. Both relationships have terms, and the head lease usually governs what the sublandlord can permit. An accommodation your sublandlord grants but the head lease forbids is not secure.

Who owes the duty

• The building owner owes it in relation to the dwelling, and a request usually has to reach them.
• A sublandlord letting the whole unit and living elsewhere is a housing provider and owes it too.
• A sublandlord letting you a room in a home they live in is in the position the Act largely leaves alone, the same as a housemate.

In practice

Raise it before signing, and ask the sublandlord to get written confirmation from the owner or agent. A sublet is short and the cost of discovering the problem halfway through is high, because you have no security and limited standing to argue.

Short sublets and the dwelling question

A sublet of a few weeks starts to look less like a dwelling and more like temporary accommodation, which weakens the Fair Housing Act argument in the same way it does for a hotel or a holiday let. A summer sublet you treat as home is a much better case than a fortnight between leases, and length is one factor rather than the whole answer.

When you are the sublandlord

If you are letting your own place out and your subtenant asks for an accommodation, you are the housing provider for that request. You cannot simply pass it to the owner and stop: you owe an answer, and where the head lease genuinely prevents you from granting it, the useful thing is to say so and take it to the owner rather than to refuse and leave it there.