Fiona Wyllie bought her apartment on the Isle of Dogs in the UK in 2004 for ￡470,000 ($581,370), but in 2019 she took an early retirement and moved to Scotland to care for her mother. She put her apartment on the rental market for ￡2,200 ($2,721) a month. After finding a tenant, Fiona settled into a routine and watched the money come in every month, completely unaware that her tenant was making a fortune by subletting the property. She learned of the situation when a neighbor called to ask for an explanation about why there were so many people coming and going from her apartment. That’s when Fiona discovered her property listed on Airbnb, complete with a range of exorbitant rates and full pictures of the interior of the apartment. It turns out her tenant had been charging ￡280 ($346) a night and had made the apartment available for the entire month of May for the price of ￡7,500 ($9,277). Fiona sprang into action, beginning the arduous task of evicting her tenant from the property. She finally managed to get a court order, directing the tenant to vacate the property and he left last week. It appears that this is not an isolated incident, with 13% of renters admitting to subletting their apartments. A whopping 48% of them didn’t let their landlords know. Subletting an apartment in the UK is a breach of licensing and invalidates the landlord’s insurance on the property as well.
