Subletting- how to?

[Bungee]

Hi all!

Making a long story short, me and my gf are moving to NYC for a few months next year. We plan on renting an apartment for our stay there and started casually browsing sublets the last few weeks. But things will turn serious now as we are headed over the pond beginning of February.
 
As I really don't know anything at all regarding renting in NY or the US, I just figured I'd ask for some advice on what to keep an eye on when trying to find a suitable sublet and how not to get fucked over somehow.

Right now we primarily focus on sublet.com and craigslist as well the out of campus housing and subletting website of the university I'm headed for.

[Johny Cee]

If you are concerned about not getting fucked, GET A PROFESSIONAL.  Look at contacting a property or real estate management company.  NYC does a fair amount of short term subletting/rentals, I think.

Even if someone here has experience with it, it could be in a different state with much different municipal/state laws relating to subletting/rentals, or just what the difference in local markets is like.

[CmdrSlack]

What Johny said. Finding a short-term lease is 1 hojillion % safer than finding someone on craigslist who wants to sublet their space. I lived in Dublin for a summer and rented an apartment with two friends for the same reason.

In the U.S., most leases prohibit subleasing without the written consent of the landlord. If you are finding a sublease on craigslist, there is a very good chance that the person looking for the sublet has not received permission first. If you do sublet and don't find a short-term lease, always always always get a letter from the landlord (not the person looking for the sublet) saying that it's cool.

Otherwise, you could find yourself in an eviction situation and end up dropping some decent coin to find a reputable attorney. Or you could try to go pro se and find out how well and truly fucked our courts are for people who aren't attorneys.

ETA -- Seriously. I am in court at least once a week and see people defending themselves all the time. What you think is a "good reason" or a "valid defense" doesn't fucking matter. The law is the law and, unfortunately, it is generally not in your favor. What is "common sense" or "fair" is likely not how the law is written in the landlord-tenant-subtenant realm.

Quite simply, if you are renting from a renter who has not received permission from the landlord, you are well and truly fucked if a problem arises. For instance, if your "landlord" fails to pay the real landlord on time, you're the one facing a visit from the county sheriff, not the asshat who took your money and didn't pay the landlord. Yes, you may have some recourse, but that involves hiring a lawyer and shit. Or it involves filing a small claims action and figuring out how to navigate a foreign legal system.

[Sky]

Nerf should have totally sublet the lawn house.

[Bungee]

Thanks for the replies so far! I hope that'll push my girlfriend more towards renting a company-run sublet as I would prefer anyways.

[Abagadro]

Subleasing can work but only if you get good documentation with the property owner directly rather than just with the tenant (i.e. direct payments, etc.).  Going through all of that hassle is usually not worth it unless it is a particularly advantageous situation as it is just as much trouble (if not less) to get a short term lease.

Or: What they said up there.

[Bungee]

Again, thanks for your replies so far!

After doing some googling on what is/is not legal regarding subrenting in the state of NY, I found multiple recommendations for a certain broker site called backpage.com.
I couldn't help though but got suspicious about some of those offerings as they are

a) in prime neighbourhoods
b) extremely well and modern furnished
c) very affordable (which is the actual offsetting point here)

Nonetheless, my gf and I decided to get in contact for an apartment that had "Ad Placed By: Agency/Locator Service" in its description and promptly got a (partly personal to be sure) reply that gave instructions on how to make some advance payments in order to get the apartment reserved. I do know and understand that this is standard procedure in such cases, but how exactly can I be sure I'm not getting scammed here? Is there any particular paperwork/business background/what not I can ask for?

[Abagadro]

Don't specifically know how things work in NY, but that sounds like a scam.   Maybe apartments are so hard to find there that you have to pay fees to services to find them for you, but it sounds shady.

[taolurker]

http://newyork.craigslist.org/sub/

[Ingmar]

Backpage.com appears to just be a Craigslist clone.

[Bungee]

After hours of checking ads, writing e-mails and making phone calls I think we finally got ourselves something. Thanks for the help here!