I did not listen to my landlord, was it a sin?

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Methodius234

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Hi
I have an rented apartment and the landlord said it is not permissable to rent out the apartment to another person while renting it from the landlord. I did it anyway. They call it “unallowed second-hand rental” (my translation from swedish). I risk to lose my apartment if they catch me renting it out to another person.

Is this what I have done a sin (venial or mortal)?
 
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We are required to obey just laws/rules.

Time to fess up, better to do that than to have a bad rental reference in the furture.
 
I never understand why people ask what kind of sin it is. What you did was wrong. You agreed to the terms and now you have broken them.
 
You didn’t really break a law in the US, but you did breach a contract. I don’t know if I’d say it’s sinful, but your landlord would be justified if they kicked you out or demanded some kind of compensation.
 
Methodius234 said:
Is this what I have done a sin (venial or mortal)?
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This isn’t a sin. You’ve violated the terms of a business agreement, not an agreement that is ethical in nature either explicitly or implicitly.

Legally speaking, you might say violations of business agreements are a “normal” part of the world of agreements and contracts. This is reflected in most legal systems by the fact that violations of agreements are governed by civil law, not penal law. Penal law has nothing to say about this kind of thing, because there is no ethical aspect.

Of course it can happen that there is an intrinsic ethical aspect to the violation of an agreement, in which case there would be a sin, and in which case penal law would probably become applicable too. But this doesn’t apply to your situation, because the question of whether your should or should not allow someone to stay in your apartment is not an ethical question. See what I mean? The injunction against the sub-letting is simply the owner’s preference; it is not an expression of natural law or ethics.

So, don’t worry about it. However, if your landlord finds out, don’t complain about the consequences. On the level of the agreement (not on the level of ethics) you did break a rule 😉
 
I would think that if you planned to rent out the apartment to another individual when you signed the lease, it would be lying to your landlord when you agreed to the terms of the lease without actually intending to follow them.

Last I checked, lying is a sin.
 
This is what you should mention to your confessor. Let him guide you.
 
OP, I’m moving this to the Catholic Living/ Spirituality forum. I think that’s more appropriate than the liturgy forum.
 
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