Brief of the case

    Mr. Li claimed that the tenant Mr. Wang and I signed a house lease contract in September 2020, and agreed that we would rent a house in Haidian District for a period from December 1, 2020 to November 30, 2023, with an annual rent of 1829730.40 yuan. In the first year, the payment cycle shall be 3 months. In the performance of the contract, Mr. Wang began to default on rent when he paid the rent for the third time in the first year, and has accumulated a total of 1629730.40 yuan in arrears. I issued a notice to Mr. Wang in February 2022 to make up the rent owed, but he has not yet made up the rent in full. In March 2022, according to the relevant provisions of the contract, I sent Mr. Wang a notice of termination of the contract, informing him to terminate the house lease contract signed by both parties and requiring him to vacate the house and pay the rent owed by him at the same time, but Mr. Wang still has not fulfilled the relevant obligations. In addition, after Mr. Wang signed the house lease contract with me, he rented part of the rented house to the defendant Mr. He without my permission.

    Mr. He argued that he did not agree with the landlord's lawsuit. There is no contractual relationship between me and the landlord, and according to the principle of relativity of contract, Mr. Li has no right to claim rights against me.

    Mr. Wang did not appear in court to give his reply.

Court hearin

    After hearing, the court held that Mr. Wang's overdue payment of housing rent violated the agreement of the housing lease contract signed with the landlord Mr. Li. The landlord mailed the Notice of Termination of theContract in March 2022, notifying Mr. Wang of the termination of the contract and requiring him to vacate the house involved on March 15, 2022. According to the agreement of the house lease contract, March 15, 2022 is the date of termination of the lease contract. Mr. Wang shall pay to the landlord the full rent of the premises involved from June 1, 2021 to March 15, 2022. The landlord repossessed the house rented by Mr. Wang on September 8, 2022. Therefore, Mr. He shall pay the landlord the occupancy fee from March 16, 2022 until the date when the landlord actually repossessed the house occupied by Mr. He. The court finally made the decision.

    After the sentencing, Mr. He appealed, and the court of second instance upheld the original sentence. The judgment has now come into force.

Judge's statement

    According to the general provisions, the contract is relative, and the right holder can only claim the right against the contract counterpart. However, Article 13 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues concerning the Specific Application of Law in the Trial of Urban Housing Lease Contract Disputes (2020 Amendment) stipulates that if the housing lease contract is invalid, the performance period expires or is terminated, and the lessor requests the sublessee who has the obligation to vacate the room to pay the overdue occupancy fee, the people's Court shall support it. According to this Law, although the sub-lessee and the lessor have not signed a contract directly, the lessee occupies the lessor's house, resulting in the lessor's inability to normally occupy, use and benefit from the house, which objectively damages the legal rights of the lessor, so the lessor has the right to directly claim fees from the lessor. In this case, the sub-tenant Mr. He rents the house involved, and the right comes from Mr. Wang, who rents the house from the landlord Mr. Li. After the termination of the house lease contract between Mr. Li and Mr. Wang, Mr. Li has the right to clean up the rights and obligations of the contract, so He has the right to ask Mr. Wang and Mr. He to return the house involved, and the overdue withdrawal should pay the occupancy fee.

    At present, the housing rental market is hot, and the situation that the second landlord sublets the house is also common. As the lessor should be clear when signing the contract whether to allow the lessee to sublet, as the lessee should also be in the contract to understand in detail the ownership of the house, whether there is a former lease relationship, can not avoid paying the corresponding costs because of not understanding the situation of the house.

    This article is transferred from "Beijing Haidian Court", here to express our thanks!