As students approach the end of the semester and the beginning of their summer internship hunts, a familiar theme pops up in Facebook groups, housing sites and GroupMes: people looking for subletters.
The subletting process isn’t easy for everyone. Many students struggle to find subleasers, as demonstrated by the number of students in various UNC housing and subleasing Facebook groups. There are more than 4,600 members in "UNC Chapel Hill Subleases, Roommates, Off Campus Housing & Apartments" and more than 4,200 in "UNC Sublease."
UNC and Chapel Hill are also getting more crowded — on-campus housing had a 99.7 percent occupancy rate as of August 2018, and off-campus apartment complexes have reported an uptick in students looking for housing as early as September the year before their expected move-in date. And as off-campus deadlines shift, so do dorm deadlines: on-campus housing application deadlines have shifted from Feb. 7, 2016 for the 2016-17 school year to Nov. 26, 2018 for the 2019-20 school year.
Some Chapel Hill apartment complexes have additional rules and fees for residents subletting their rooms. In a sample housing agreement available on Lark Chapel Hill’s website, a section on subleasing stipulates that residents subletting their rooms must pay a $200 fee if they found their own subletter or $400 if the owner of Lark finds a subletter for them.
With the high demand, complex regulations and general sense of panic around finding subletters, here are some resources on the topic:
Town of Chapel Hill Code of Ordinances
The code of ordinances is available online. It’s important to note that under the town’s housing code, there is an occupancy limit of no more than four unrelated people that may reside in the same dwelling unit.
Town of Carrboro Housing Code
The Town of Carrboro’s housing code is available online.
