How to rent an apartment
Comparing lease and sublease contracts when renting
Are you looking for a flat to rent in Ostrava? Do you know the difference between lease and sublease? If you don’t then no worries, this blog post covers everything you need to know.
Firstly you might wonder what I am talking about. If you are looking to rent, you will get a contract depending on the ownership of the property. To put it in simple words, if the person owns it directly you will have a lease contract and if the property is owned by a housing cooperative, the „owner“ himself/herself will have a lease from the housing cooperative, therefore you as a tenant will have sublease contract.
Now you know the difference between lease and sublease. Apart from the different types of contracts, which are needed for each ownership, there are other things important for you to understand properly and how it could affect you.
To begin, you are more protected when you lease directly. This is due to the fact that if you have a sublease contract if the „tenant’s“ (owner’s) contract is over for whatever reason, yours is too. If you lease directly, unless the owner decides to terminate the contract for any reason specified in the contract, you are most likely able to stay there as long as you want. This is not to say sublease contracts are not safe, it is to make you aware there are more reasons they might terminate your contract when subleasing.
With a lease, it is not allowed to prohibit having animals, run a business, smoke or have a permanent address at the property. On the other hand, when you are subleasing a property, you not only have to have permission from the tenant but also from the owner (housing cooperative) themselves.
However, subleasing is not bad at all. If you live in a building that is full of subleased flats, the building itself is most likely to be looked after well by the housing cooperative. Also, many investors do not buy properties from housing cooperatives. It is a long process as they have to have many more permissions in comparison to owning a property off right.
What this means to you is that if you are looking to rent a flat which will be subleased to you, most likely the building will be well looked after by the housing cooperative and the tenants (owners) there will be decent people as renting or financing a purchase of such flat is not easy, but more about this in some next blog post.
Hope you enjoyed reading my first blog for OEC and should you need any assistance with Real Estate here in Ostrava, do not hesitate to get in touch.
Author: Tereza Klozíková – Real Eastate Agent (www.facebook.com/TerezaKlozikovaRealitniMaklerka)
