Signing for a room is different from signing for a flat, and most of the advice out there is written for the second. This is about the first: the piece of paper (or the WhatsApp message, which is often all there is) that decides what you owe, what you get back and how easily you can leave.
None of this is legal advice. The rules differ between the UK and Ireland, between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and between a tenancy and a lodger arrangement. What doesn't change is what you need to check.
Two very different markets
There are two ways to end up in a flatshare, and they come with different contracts and different risks.
The first: you're joining a flat that already exists. Someone else holds the tenancy, or the owner lives there, and you're taking a room. Your agreement is with them. If the owner lives in the property, you're usually a lodger rather than a tenant, which generally means fewer legal protections and shorter notice in both directions. If another tenant is renting the room to you, you're a subtenant, and your position depends on whether the landlord knows.
The second: you and a group take a whole flat together. Everyone's name goes on one contract, and that almost always means joint and several liability: each of you is responsible for the whole rent, not just your share. If one person stops paying, the landlord can ask the rest of you for the difference. That's the single most important sentence in this guide, and it's the one people discover after the fact.
What the contract has to say
A room agreement doesn't need to be long. It does need to be specific about six things. If any of them is missing, ask for it in writing before you pay anything.
- Who the parties are: your full name and the full name of whoever you're paying. If that's another tenant rather than the landlord, you want to know.
- Which room. By description if not by number, and whether what's in it (the desk, the wardrobe) is yours to use or theirs to remove.
- The rent, the date it's due, and how it's paid.
- Which bills are included and which aren't. “Bills included” means nothing until you know which ones. In the UK, ask specifically about council tax.
- How long the agreement runs, and whether it rolls on month to month after that.
- Notice: how much you have to give to leave, and how much they have to give you. Both directions.
If it's a verbal agreement, write the same six points in a message and ask the other person to confirm. It isn't a contract, but it's a record, and a record is what you'll need if there's a dispute about the deposit.
The deposit
The usual amount is around a month's rent; anything much beyond that deserves a question. What matters more than the amount is where it goes and what has to happen for you to get it back.
In the UK, a deposit taken on a standard tenancy has to be protected in a government-approved scheme, and you should be told which one shortly after paying. That protection is the difference between a dispute you can take somewhere and a dispute that's just two people disagreeing. Lodgers don't get the same protection, which is one more reason to know which arrangement you're in. In Ireland the rules work differently; check the current position rather than assuming.
What makes a deposit disappear: damage beyond normal wear, unpaid rent or bills, leaving before the notice runs out, and, most often, the absence of evidence. Take dated photos of the room and anything shared on the day you move in, and send them to whoever you're paying. It takes ten minutes and it wins arguments a year later.
- Get a receipt for the deposit, in writing, with the amount and the date.
- Ask where it's held. “I've got it” isn't an answer.
- Ask what the last person got back, and why.
- Agree in advance how the room is to be left, so “clean” means the same thing to both of you.
Subletting, and why you want to know if the landlord knows
A large share of rooms in shared flats are sublets: one tenant renting to another. Plenty of them are fine. The risk is that your whole agreement depends on someone else's, and you can't see that one.
If the head tenant's contract forbids subletting and the landlord finds out, the head tenant can lose the flat and you lose your room with no notice and nobody to ask for your deposit. If the landlord knows and has agreed, you're in a much stronger position: at the very least, there's a second person who acknowledges you live there.
So ask, plainly: “Does the landlord know I'll be living here?”. A clear yes, ideally with the landlord's contact details, is a good sign. A vague answer, or a request to keep quiet about it, should change your price and possibly your decision.
If someone leaves early
Somebody always leaves early. A job, a breakup, a better room. What happens next depends on which market you're in.
In a joint tenancy, the leaver stays on the contract until it ends or a replacement is signed on, and everyone else covers their share in the meantime. Agree the sequence before it happens: the person leaving finds the replacement, the remaining flatmates get a say in who it is, and the deposit is sorted between the leaver and the newcomer directly, not with the landlord in the middle.
In a room agreement it's simpler: you give notice, you serve it, you leave. Where it goes wrong is when the notice period is longer than you assumed, or isn't written anywhere and turns out to be whatever the other person says it is.
Red flags in a contract
- Being asked for money before you've seen the room in person, or before you've met the person you're paying.
- A deposit that's cash only, with no receipt.
- No notice period, or one that only applies to you.
- A clause letting them raise the rent or change the bills at any time without agreement.
- Rules that only appear after you've paid: no guests, no cooking after a certain hour, no overnight visitors.
- Pressure to sign today because “someone else is interested”.
- Anyone who won't say whose name the tenancy is in.
How to stay safe while looking for a room
What to ask before you sign
- 1.Whose name is the tenancy in, and does the landlord know I'm moving in?
- 2.Which bills are included, and who is responsible for the ones that aren't?
- 3.Where is the deposit held, and what did the last person get back?
- 4.How much notice do I give to leave, and how much do you give me?
- 5.If someone else in the flat stops paying, what happens to the rest of us?
- 6.Can I have the six points we've discussed in writing before I pay anything?
The last one is the real test. Anyone who's happy to have you in the flat will be happy to put it in writing. Anyone who isn't has just told you something.