My tenent wants to sublet one of the room in the house. Who should be in charge of screening the subletting tenent me or my tenent. Also, what part should I play in this process?

Hi @Vishal Shah , I would recommend having the ability to approve the tenant.  Ideally if your current tenant can find the sublet person and you could verify them that would be ideal since it wouldn't increase your work tremendously, but the main thing is this:  make sure you have the final say in who has a legally binding agreement on your property.

Does your lease allow for this?  I'd want to screen the person because if that first tenant leaves, you are stuck potentially stuck with the person who is subletting that room.  I'm guessing the tenant pays for all utilities.

We often get referrals for vacancies in our MF & other properties by existing or vacating tenants. We would NEVER allow anyone else to pick our tenants & we have the screening by a company of our choice.

@Will Fraser Thank you, you make manhood point about someone else in a binding contract on my property.

@Theresa Harris Thank you, you make agreat point about my current tenent leaving and me being stick with the sublet tenent.

@Pat L. Thank you, do you have a recommendation on screening companies? My rental house is in Texas.

@Will Fraser if I run the screening and have the sublet tenent sign my contract will I be liable for any issue the two of them have? Also, my current tenent is the one looking to sublet. She came up with he idea on her own. Should I have both of them sign something that talks about how the current owner is still liable for the full rent and the sublet tenent will pay the current tenent?

As the other respondents have pointed out wisely here, you're best off NOT subletting in general because it is a difficult situation to work out well.

In general, if you are keen on keeping the tenant and subletting is a sensible option then it makes the most sense to have a local real estate attorney draft a sub-lease agreement that clearly delineates whose responsibility X, Y, and Z is.  It is a precarious situation for precisely this reason -- it can be very unclear who has what responsibility and I haven't known tenants to be humble or teachable when it comes to learning  who has the responsibility, but rather they are prone to demanding that they know exactly the situation. 

@Vishal Shah did you put anything about subletting in the master lease? It might prohibit subletting altogether if you used a form lease from something like a Texas realtor association...it's completely legal to blanket prohibit subletting in Texas. 

Barring that, I'll echo what everyone else said: you should screen them using the exact same criteria you used to screen your current tenant. It's not worth it to try and come up with less stringent criteria under the thinking that the original tenant is still technically liable. 

Here's a free lawyer vetted sublease if you need it.

@Susannah Vila Thank you for the form. That will be helpful if I chose to move forward. Also, I am extending the lease 2nd time (this will be my tenants 3rd year) but having her sign a completely new lease since her boyfriend moved out.

@Vishal Shah . Here is the verbiage I put in a lease involving 3 Single Individuals renting a home that needed to replace one of the tenants.

Hope this helps.

@Jim Cummings - Thank you this does help.

If this is to let the current tenant out of their lease, you should thank them and run all the usual checks as for a new tenant.  The benefit to you is no vacancy or marketing costs.