Asked to leave over subletting: examine use and permission

Identify your position and the document requiring an answer

This guide concerns a main tenant challenged by their landlord. If you instead rent from a tenant, see your own position in the subletting guide. Draw both contractual relationships and identify who brings each claim. An owner and a managing agent are not automatically the same party to proceedings.

Check whether the request includes penalties, surrender of profits, residents’ details and costs as well as termination. Keep the complete notice, demand or summons. Disputed permission may need different evidence from a disputed amount. Record the next deadline and send the whole document for assessment rather than only quoting the prohibition.

Describe each occupant’s actual use

Make a timeline of people, rooms, access, duration and your own occupation. Was there a separate room, exclusive use of the entire property, a key or an agreement about returning? Which amounts were paid, and why? Use original messages and payment records. Friend, guest or contribution to expenses is not a decisive legal classification by itself.

If you say payments concerned a loan or shared groceries, support the arrangement and explain how it matches the amounts. The Amsterdam judgment of 1 May 2026 illustrates that an unsupported alternative explanation may be insufficient against specific documents. It does not make every payment rent; it shows why another explanation needs evidence and consistency.

Read the restriction and permission in full

Government information distinguishes subletting a whole home from letting part while continuing to live there. The agreement may also impose restrictions. Read the tenancy contract, general conditions and supplied attachments together. A separate permit or municipal registration does not automatically establish your landlord’s consent.

Find the scope of permission: person, space, duration and conditions. An old email allowing a temporary stay may not cover repeated new subtenants. The Amsterdam decision of 25 March 2026 examined the scope of alleged historical arrangements and applicable conditions. Assess consent through specific evidence, not merely a general impression that the landlord knew everything.

Support arrangements made with former landlords

A new owner may dispute what an earlier landlord permitted. Gather old correspondence, particular visits, repairs and events said to establish knowledge or agreement. Distinguish seeing somebody from legally consenting to their occupation. Identify who acted on the former landlord’s behalf and what that person actually communicated.

In the March case, different arrangements could not be ruled out, and extensive proof did not fit those interim proceedings. This was not a general rule that years of tolerance cancel every restriction. A new landlord can contest the arrangement and conditions may remain relevant. Have proof, effect and any limitation issue assessed specifically; do not declare rights extinguished merely through time.

Consider a return to permitted occupation

If others have left, record when and what really changed. Examine agreements affecting their own housing position. Your landlord’s wish does not automatically entitle you to put their possessions outside or change their locks. Have the appropriate ending of that separate relationship assessed before taking action.

The March judgment considered opportunities to correct the situation, but did not find urgency eliminated simply because subtenants had departed. Possible return or repetition mattered there. Show both completed changes and intended future use and affordability. Correction can carry weight without automatically erasing earlier conduct or every outstanding claim.

Keep principal residence and subletting separate

A contract may require you to live there yourself and prohibit use by other people. Examine both allegations. Evidence of your presence does not necessarily answer an agreement with another occupant; a room subtenant does not itself prove that you lack principal residence. Each alleged obligation needs its own answer.

Show the period relevant to each allegation and the available evidence of your occupation. The May case examined residence, subletting and responses to specific proof together. Its outcome does not predict every shared household. Do not invent a threshold of nights or residents; have the contract, facts and allocation of proof reviewed.

Separate penalties, profits and costs from keeping the home

List each monetary claim, calculation and contractual basis. A penalty may require a different assessment from subletting receipts or ordinary procedural costs. In the May case, eviction was awarded while certain financial requests were refused. One result therefore does not automatically determine every sum claimed.

Have validity and application of clauses, urgency and substantiation examined separately. Setting aside or rejecting a penalty does not automatically make the underlying occupation permitted. Conversely, a clause does not prove every claimed amount. Identify what you accept and contest and supply payment records without presenting your own assumptions as a definitive legal correction.

Prepare a focused defence and any settlement

Seek legal assistance where your home is at risk and handle a summons separately from informal discussions. Interim proceedings differ from the final contractual dispute. Include historical arrangements and unfavourable documents; a file containing only today’s occupant list may omit the relevant history.

Use the dossier tool for a timeline and exhibit index. Make clear whether a settlement adjusts use only or also ends the tenancy and resolves claims and implementation. This preparation makes the dispute assessable. It cannot guarantee keeping the tenancy merely by renaming occupants or asking them to leave.

• Identify your position and every claim
• Timeline of occupants and use
• Contract and specific permission
• Evidence of historical arrangements
• Correction separate from other occupants’ rights
• Money claims and procedural deadline tracked separately