Student lodger agreement

About this student lodger agreement

This agreement is for a student house owner to allow one or more people to occupy a room or rooms in your home. You do not have to a student occupier, but we believe that will be the most common use of this document.

In order to avoid accidentally giving a lodger security of tenure, note that it is important that:

• the house owner or a child of the house owner occupies the house from a date before the lodger moves in to a date after he/she is due to leave.
• No lodger should be given “exclusive possession”. In other words the owner-occupier must always be able to wander about the whole house and use every room.
• You do not create a flat or any other segregated space.
• Your lodger leaves at the end of the term/period agreed and does not set up home (with you or not) at the end of the period.

This agreement assumes that the costs of running the house are shared and that no personal services like cooking and ironing, are included.

When to use this licence

It is suitable for any type of property: flats or houses, and can be used to let more than one room in the same property.

You can use this agreement for any time period, but it is sensible to limit it to no more than one year so that both you and your lodger know that the end date is fixed and soon. The best arrangement is to provide in the agreement for a very short period, like four weeks. You can then renew as often as you like, but if your lodger does decide to live with you for ever, you will know fast and be better able to evict him.

You can use this agreement to sub-let a room if you rent under a tenancy agreement (subject to your tenancy agreement allowing sub-letting) and subject to someone on the original tenancy agreement still living at the address.

The document is not suitable if:

• The lodger will run a business from the property
• The lodger will occupy the whole property and the landlord lives elsewhere
• The lodger will only live in the property on a part time basis (use our Part time lodger agreement)

Agreement features and contents

• Includes sensible, practical provisions to protect the landlord’s interests.
• Full description of the property and the services that the lodger should expect to receive.
• All likely provisions for restrictions on what the lodger may do in the property.
• Rent period and amount