You’re sharing an apartment. You just found out that your roommate is making you pay more than your fair share of the rent. If they’re making a profit by subletting, you have options to get your rent adjusted and your money back.
Your roommate can’t make money by subletting a room to you. The law makes it illegal. The same goes for someone who sublets their apartment to you.
When you sublet a room or an apartment, the rent you are charged can include:
- the rent written in the lease, or your share of the rent if you are living with roommates,
- the cost of services or your share of those costs (electricity, internet, etc.),
- an amount for the use of the furniture.
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Subletting is where a tenant rents out all or part of a rental unit to someone else for a certain amount of time. The subtenant pays rent to the tenant who then pays the landlord. For example, someone going overseas for six months can sublet their rental unit to you for that period. Or maybe two of you are renting an apartment together but only your roommate is on the lease. Your roommate pays rent to the landlord and gets your share from you. |
What to do if your rent is too high
If you think the rent on your sublet is too high, you have two options. You can ask Quebec’s housing tribunal, the Tribunal administratif du logement (TAL), to set a fair rent. The TAL will calculate the rent you have to pay by looking at the rent written in the lease, the cost of services, and a reasonable amount for the use of the furniture. The amount for the use of the furniture will depend on the circumstances. For example, the TAL has said that $180 per month is enough to cover use of the furniture in a fully equipped 4 ½.
You can also ask the TAL to order your roommate to give you back what you overpaid. However, you can’t make this request at the same time as you challenge the amount of rent you pay. You need to file two separate applications with the TAL.
A profit that could cost you
You could lose your apartment if your landlord finds out that your roommate is making a profit by renting you a room. In this type of situation, landlords can ask the TAL to terminate a lease and evict the tenants and all other occupants from the premises.
Why? Because landlords can ask the TAL to end a lease if the tenant causes them harm. By making a profit on a sublet, your roommate is no longer using the premises as a residence. Rather, they are using the space for commercial purposes. This can cause problems for the landlord, for example, by affecting their insurance coverage on the building.
In addition to ordering their eviction, the TAL could fine your roommate $200 to $1900.