Q. My tenant asked if she could sublet a room to a lodger and I told her no. I have now discovered that she has done this anyway and when I challenged her she said that it was a choice between this and going into arrears on the rent. What is my best course of action?

A. If she is a single person then allowing her to take in one lodger is unlikely to cause any problems. If she refuses to get rid of the lodger your only real option is eviction, which would be expensive and you would probably suffer loss of rent in the meantime. So financially your best option is to allow the lodger to remain.  

It would have been better really if you had agreed when she asked, then you could have insisted on being involved in the choice of lodger and having a veto if you thought the person was unsatisfactory.   

As it is, probably the best thing to do is to warn her that: