The main implcations of having a tenancy are that the landlord will be bound by the statutory repairing covenants in s11 of the Landlord & Tenant Act 1985, and having a sub tenant could put the landlord in breach of the terms of his mortgage and insurance policy. Also if the landlord stops living at the property, the tenancy will convert to an AST requiring a minimum notice of 2 months if the landlord wants the tenant to leave.

Q2. The phrase ‘sub letting’ generally means letting as a tenancy, particuarly as many tenancy agreements also prohibit paying guests and lodgers. However any tenant wanting to take in a lodger should speak to their landlord about it first. Most landlords will agree particuarly if the reason for taking a lodger is to prevent the tenant falling into arrears of rent.

I will probably be doing posts on these points later so keep an eye on the blog.

Note that I am going to close comments on this post now, as this is an introductory post to the 21 days series, and the points covered are now dealt with in more detail elsewhere on the site.

Q1: I’m confused about the issue of potentially granting a tenancy by having a lock on the lodger’s room. As I understand it, if an occupier shares accommodation with his landlord, and the property is the landlord’s only or principal residence, then the occupier is ‘excluded’ – that is, the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 does not apply.

This being the case, if the lodger had a ‘tenancy’ by virtue of having exclusive possession of his room, what might be the consequences of this tenancy?

Q2: Let’s say that a tenant with an assured shorthold tenancy takes in a lodger (and follows your advice to provide small services and not to give the lodger exclusive possession of his room), and the contract prohibits ‘subletting’ – would the AST tenant be in breach of the contract?

If you would like some ‘one to one’ advice, note that I offer a fixed fee advice service to members of my Landlord Law web-site which you can read about here http://www.landlordlaw.co.uk/pagedetail.ihtml?id=7805.

Can anyone reading this please note that questions on problem lodgers posted to this page will not be published – any comments on problem lodgers should be made to the Day 19 post (which will go live on 19 February 2010).

You really need to read the rest of the 21 days. For example take a look at Day 4, and in due course Day 20. My advice however is not to allow the lock, or only to allow it on condition that you have a key and will go in as and when you need to.