What your lease decides

The clauses that actually matter

These are separate restrictions, and permission on one does not imply the others. A lease can allow subletting on a long tenancy while prohibiting the short-term use entirely.

• Subletting — often permitted only with consent, and sometimes only on a tenancy of a minimum length such as six or twelve months
• Short-term or holiday letting — sometimes named explicitly and prohibited outright
• Business or trade use — a very common clause, and short letting is frequently argued to be a trade
• Use as a private dwelling only — the quiet clause that catches most people, because it can be read as excluding a revolving series of paying occupiers
• Nuisance and annoyance to other residents — the clause a freeholder will lean on if neighbours complain

Why "nobody has said anything" is not permission

Letting in breach of a lease is a breach whether or not it has been noticed. Freeholders and managing agents increasingly monitor listing sites, and complaints from neighbours are the usual trigger.

The consequences run from a demand to stop and a bill for the freeholder's legal costs, through to forfeiture proceedings against the lease in serious cases. There is case law on both sides of the private-dwelling point and outcomes have gone against leaseholders.

It also affects your mortgage. A lender's consent is usually conditional on complying with the lease, so a lease breach can put you in breach of the mortgage as well.

How to ask, and what to ask for

Write to the freeholder or managing agent and ask specifically about short-term letting rather than subletting in general — the two get answered differently, and a yes to the wrong question is worth nothing.

Ask for the answer in writing, and ask whether consent is conditional. Common conditions include a maximum number of nights, a requirement to hold specific insurance, registering guests with the concierge, or a licence fee.

Expect it to take time, and expect a refusal in many purpose-built blocks. Some managing agents now issue blanket prohibitions across an entire estate.

What we do before taking a leasehold flat on

We ask to see the lease, and we ask for the freeholder's written position on short-term letting. Not because we are cautious for its own sake — because this is the single most common reason a plan we would otherwise take on does not work.

If the consents are not in place we will tell you rather than list the property and wait for the letter. A property removed from the platforms three months in, with forward bookings to cancel, costs far more than the week spent checking.

Where short letting is genuinely prohibited, a medium-term or corporate let is often still possible under the same lease, because a single occupier on a longer stay is a different proposition. That is worth exploring before giving up on the property.