Assigning a Lease and Subletting
© Fernando Calderón
Assignment of lease
Assignment of a lease is a process that allows a tenant to leave their housing before the end of their lease. When you assign your lease, you transfer all rights and obligations arising from it to another person. You are therefore no longer the tenant of the housing.
To transfer your lease, you must first find a candidate who wishes to take your housing. Once you have found this candidate, you can sign a lease assignment contract (example of contract in the “Letter templates” section) then you must send a notice of lease assignment to your landlord (see “Letter templates” or the Tribunal website). Your landlord has 15 days after receiving the notice to refuse your candidate (and the reasons given must be valid. If you have not heard from them after this time, the assignment of lease is considered as accepted.
For more information on assigning a lease, visit Éducaloi’s article Assigning a lease or subletting
Subletting
Unlike the assignment of lease, when you sublet your housing, you remain responsible for your housing. So if your subtenant damages or doesn’t pay the rent, the landlord will sue you. You also become the landlord of your sub-tenant, so it is to you that he or she must turn if a problem were to arise in the apartment. The process for subletting your housing is essentially the same as for the assignment of lease: once the agreement has been concluded with the sub-landlord (example of contract in the “Letter templates” section), you must send a notice of subletting to your landlord (see “Letter templates” or the Tribunal’s website) and if 15 days after reception of the notice you have not heard from your landlord, the subletting is considered accepted.
PLEASE NOTE: If you receive a notice of non-renewal of your lease from your landlord which states that you have sublet your housing for more than 12 months (or mention of article 1948 of the Civil Code), you must act and contest within a month of the notice! Even if you do not sublet, contact us for more information.
If you are the sub-tenant, know that you do not have the right to maintain occupancy.
There are some exceptions to the possibility of subletting your housing, for more information on subletting, we invite you to read the Éducaloi article on this subject: https://educaloi.qc.ca/en/capsules/assigning-a-lease-or-subletting/