Free Utah Sublease Agreement
Utah has no sublease consent statute, but it is one of the few states whose unlawful detainer section names subletting on its face: sublet contrary to the covenants of your lease and the route is a three calendar day notice to quit, with no statutory chance to put it right.
Whether you may sublet in Utah is decided by your rental agreement. The Fit Premises Act at Utah Code chapter 57-22 creates no right to sublet and sets no consent standard; its only mention of a sublessor is in the definition of “owner”. But Utah does something most states do not: its unlawful detainer statute singles subletting out by name, and attaches one of the shortest notices in the country to it.
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Subletting is named in the unlawful detainer statute
Utah Code § 78B-6-802(1)(d) makes a tenant guilty of unlawful detainer who “assigns or sublets the leased premises contrary to the covenants of the lease, or commits or permits waste on the premises after service of a three calendar days’ notice to quit”. Read that against the subsection three above it: § 78B-6-802(1)(c) gives a tenant in arrears three business days. The legislature used both units in the same section, so “calendar” in (1)(d) is a choice, not shorthand — and over a weekend it is the difference between three days and five.
Watch: Free Utah Sublease Agreement explained
Utah sublease at a glance
Consent statute
None — the lease governs
If you sublet in breach
3 calendar days’ notice to quit
Statutory cure
None written in
Periodic tenancy
15 calendar days to end it
A notice to quit is not a notice to cure
Nothing in § 78B-6-802(1)(d) offers the tenant a chance to remedy. Compare Arizona, whose § 33-1368(A) says the agreement does not terminate if the breach is adequately remedied before the date in the notice, or South Carolina’s fourteen-day cure. Utah writes in neither. The three days are notice that possession is being demanded, not an invitation to fix the problem — which is why, in Utah more than most states, written consent obtained before the subtenant arrives is worth the trouble.
How to sublet in Utah without losing the tenancy
Read the covenants of your lease
§ 78B-6-802(1)(d) turns on subletting “contrary to the covenants of the lease”. If there is no covenant against it, the subsection has nothing to bite on. Find the clause and read what it actually restricts.
Get consent in writing before anyone moves in
Utah supplies no reasonableness standard, so the written consent is the whole of your protection. Record the date and who gave it.
Write the sublease down
You stay liable to the owner. This document is the only thing that gives you a claim against the person actually in the unit.
Know which clock applies if a notice arrives
Three calendar days for subletting in breach, three business days for unpaid rent, fifteen calendar days to end a periodic tenancy. They are all in the same section and they are not interchangeable.
Agree the deposit terms with your subtenant
Utah Code § 57-17-3 governs what the owner returns to you. What you hold from your subtenant lives only in this agreement.
About the Utah sublease agreement
A sublease puts a new occupant into the unit while you remain answerable to the owner for the rent and for damage. Utah Code § 57-22-2(1) defines “owner” to include a sublessor, which describes the duties you take on toward your subtenant rather than granting permission to sublet — the same distinction that catches people out in Arizona and South Carolina. The consent question is answered by your rental agreement. What Utah adds is an unusually specific consequence if you get it wrong, written into the unlawful detainer statute rather than the landlord-tenant chapter, which is why it is easy to miss.
What a Utah sublease should record
- The names of the original tenant, the subtenant and the owner
- The address, and the specific room or area if only part of the unit is sublet
- Start and end dates, ending no later than the master term
- The rent, when it is due and how it is paid
- Any deposit taken from the subtenant, and the conditions for its return
- Whether the owner has consented in writing, and the date
- That the original tenant remains liable to the owner for rent and for damage
Common Utah mistakes
- Reading “three days” as three business days. § 78B-6-802 uses business days for nonpayment at (1)(c) and calendar days for subletting at (1)(d). Over a weekend that is the difference between three days and five.
- Expecting a chance to cure. Subsection (1)(d) contains none. Neighbouring states do; Utah does not.
- Citing § 57-22-2 as a consent rule. It defines “owner” to include a sublessor. That is about what you owe your subtenant.
- Assuming the periodic-tenancy notice applies. The fifteen calendar days in § 78B-6-802(1)(b)(i) end a month-to-month tenancy. They have nothing to do with a breach of covenant.
Is there a Utah sublease statute?
Not a consent statute, no. We read the Fit Premises Act at Utah Code chapter 57-22 section by section and it creates no right to sublet and no standard for the owner’s consent. The single mention is in the definitions.
§ 57-22-2(1), the definition — not a permission
“Owner” means the owner, lessor, or sublessor of a residential rental unit.
That tells you a sublessor is treated as an owner toward their subtenant. It does not tell you whether you may sublet, and it should not be cited as though it did.
Reading only chapter 57-22 would leave you with the impression that Utah says nothing about subletting at all. That impression is wrong, and the reason is where the rule lives: not in the landlord-tenant chapter, but in the unlawful detainer part of the judicial code.
§ 78B-6-802, and the four different clocks in one section
Utah’s unlawful detainer section lists the circumstances in which a tenant holding for a term less than life is in unlawful detainer. Four of them carry different notice periods, and they are frequently confused with one another.
Utah Code § 78B-6-802(1), the relevant routes
(a) Holding over after a specified term — the term “shall be terminated without notice at the expiration of the specified term or period”.
(b)(i) A periodic tenancy — the owner must serve notice “15 calendar days or more before the end of that month or period”.
(b)(ii) A tenancy at will — “a notice of not less than five calendar days”.
(c) Unpaid rent — a demand in the alternative, uncomplied with for “three business days after service”.
(d) “assigns or sublets the leased premises contrary to the covenants of the lease, or commits or permits waste on the premises after service of a three calendar days’ notice to quit”.
Two features of that list are worth sitting with. The first is that subletting has its own subsection. Most states reach an unauthorised sublease through a general breach-of-covenant route; Utah names it, alongside waste, and gives it the same short notice.
The second is the unit of time. Subsection (c) says business days. Subsection (d), one line later, says calendar days. A drafter who uses both in adjacent subsections has chosen each of them. A notice served on a Friday under (d) expires on Monday; the same notice under (c) would run to Wednesday.
What “contrary to the covenants of the lease” means
Subsection (d) is not a general prohibition on subletting. It bites only where the sublease is contrary to the covenants of the lease — so the first document to read is not the statute but your own agreement. If the lease contains no covenant restricting assignment or subletting, there is nothing for (d) to attach to. If it requires the owner’s written consent, then subletting without that consent is what the subsection describes.
This is also why written consent matters more in Utah than in a cure state. In Arizona, a tenant served over an unauthorised sublease has ten days and an express statutory right to remedy the breach; in South Carolina, fourteen. In Utah the notice is a notice to quit. There is no remedy window written into (d), so the protection has to be built in advance, in the form of a consent you can produce.
You are the owner in the second relationship
Because § 57-22-2(1) includes a sublessor in “owner”, the Fit Premises Act duties run from you to your subtenant. Your subtenant looks to you for what the Act requires of an owner, and the fact that you are simultaneously someone else’s tenant does not change that.
The deposit is where this becomes concrete. Utah Code § 57-17-3(2) requires the owner to return the balance of the deposit, the balance of any prepaid rent, and a written itemisation of any deductions “no later than 30 days after the day on which a renter vacates and returns possession”. Note the trigger: vacating and returning possession, both.
What follows if the owner misses it is unusual and worth knowing. Under § 57-17-3(3) the renter may serve a “TENANT’S NOTICE TO PROVIDE DEPOSIT DISPOSITION” — the statute prints the form — and § 57-17-3(5) then gives the owner five business days to comply. If they still do not, § 57-17-5 lets the renter recover the full deposit, the full prepaid rent and a civil penalty of $100, with costs and fees where the court finds bad faith. § 57-17-5(3) is the catch: a renter who never served the § 57-17-3(3) notice is not entitled to that relief at all.
None of that governs what you hold from your subtenant. The amount, the deductions and the return date for that second deposit exist only in the document you are generating here — and if you say nothing, there is nothing to point to.
Subletting sits among the other three-day grounds
It is worth seeing where subsection (1)(d) sits, because the company it keeps says something about how the legislature rated it. The same three calendar days attach to setting up an unlawful business on the premises under (1)(e), maintaining a nuisance under (1)(f), and committing a criminal act on the premises under (1)(g).
There is also a general catch-all at § 78B-6-802(1)(h), covering a tenant who continues in possession “after a neglect or failure to perform any condition or covenant of the lease or agreement under which the property is held”. Subletting would arguably fall within that broader wording anyway — which makes it more telling, not less, that the legislature also named assigning and subletting specifically at (1)(d). A drafter does not usually name a thing that a neighbouring subsection already covers unless the naming is meant to settle the point.
One route in the same list works differently and it matters if your sublease is for a fixed term. Under § 78B-6-802(1)(a), a tenant holding over after the expiration of a specified term is in unlawful detainer, and that term “shall be terminated without notice at the expiration of the specified term or period”. No notice is owed and none needs to be given. So a subtenant on a fixed-term sublease who stays past the end date is not waiting for a notice that will never come — which is worth saying to them plainly, in the document, before the date arrives rather than after.
Where the sublease question sits in Utah law
A sublease rarely arrives on its own. Most people reach one because something else has changed — a job in another city, a relationship ending, a lease with months left on it — so it is worth knowing what the alternatives cost before you commit to this one. Our guide to breaking a lease in Utah sets out the early-exit routes and what each of them exposes you to, and in some situations ending the tenancy outright is cleaner than running a sublease you will have to manage from a distance.
The two disputes that actually follow a sublease are about money and about possession. On money, the deposit is where most of it happens, and the rules that govern what a landlord may take and when it has to come back are set out in Utah security deposit laws — worth reading before you decide what to hold from your subtenant, and before you assume you know what the owner may hold from you.
On possession, the notices and timelines that apply if things go wrong are covered in Utah eviction notice laws. You are the landlord in the sublease relationship, so those rules are as likely to be yours to use as to be used against you.
Bottom line
Utah has no sublease consent statute, so your rental agreement decides whether you may sublet – but Utah is one of the few states whose unlawful detainer section names subletting on its face. Under Utah Code section 78B-6-802(1)(d) a tenant who assigns or sublets contrary to the covenants of the lease is in unlawful detainer after a three CALENDAR day notice to quit, with no cure written in. The same section gives three BUSINESS days for unpaid rent one subsection earlier, so the unit of time in each is a deliberate choice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need permission to sublet in Utah?
That depends on your rental agreement. The Fit Premises Act at chapter 57-22 creates no right to sublet and no consent standard, so a covenant restricting it is effective on its own terms.
What happens if I sublet without permission?
Utah Code § 78B-6-802(1)(d) makes a tenant who assigns or sublets contrary to the covenants of the lease guilty of unlawful detainer after service of a three calendar days’ notice to quit.
Do I get a chance to fix it?
Subsection (1)(d) writes in none. It is a notice to quit rather than a notice to perform, unlike Arizona’s ten-day remedy or South Carolina’s fourteen-day cure.
Is that three business days or three calendar days?
Calendar. The same section uses “three business days” for unpaid rent at § 78B-6-802(1)(c) and “three calendar days” for subletting at (1)(d), so the difference is deliberate.
How much notice ends a Utah month-to-month tenancy?
Fifteen calendar days or more before the end of the month or period, under § 78B-6-802(1)(b)(i). A tenancy at will takes not less than five calendar days. Neither has anything to do with a breach of covenant.
Does the statute apply if my lease says nothing about subletting?
Subsection (1)(d) turns on subletting “contrary to the covenants of the lease”. With no such covenant there is nothing for it to attach to — which is why the clause in your own agreement is the first thing to read.
Am I still liable for the rent?
Yes. A sublease moves the occupant, not your obligations to the owner.
Who returns the deposit?
Your owner returns yours under § 57-17-3, no later than 30 days after you vacate and return possession. What you hold from your subtenant is governed only by this sublease.
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