Introduction

This Guide will:

• Help you understand the legal rules that apply to lodger landlords and what you need to do to be compliant
• Provide guidance on best practices, and
• Consider the process of renting a room to a lodger from start to finish

Note that the guidance in the website only applies to properties in England and Wales UK.

Using the Guide

If you are new to renting rooms to lodgers, the best thing is to read the whole guide before you start.  Ideally in the order that the articles appear in the menu.

However, if you have a specific issue, you should be able to find guidance via the menu sections and links.

Our content is organised into seven sections, ie:

Read First: This ‘read first’ section has background information on legal issues which you need to be aware of.

Condition: The next section deals with the preparations you need to make to ensure that the room is in a proper condition to let and the various regulations you need to comply with.

Finding: We then discuss finding a lodger including advertising for a lodger and the various checks you need to do before you give someone a key to your home (something you need to be very careful about).

Financials: Here we look at the rent that you charge, and also tax and Council tax, deposits and insurance.

Paperwork: in this day and age it is never a good idea to embark on any form of renting without the protection of proper paperwork, which we discuss in this section.

Life with a lodger: Here we look at issues that may crop up when you rent a room and give advice on how to deal with them.

Ending: Eventually your lodger will move out – but will the end of your lodger landlord relationship be amicable or hostile?

England and Wales

With effect from 1 December 2022, the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 brought in a new statutory code for renting property in Wales with new rules and terminology.

In England, there is a big difference between tenancies and licenses –

• a tenancy is a legal interest in land (a form of ownership), and
• a residential license is a permission to live in the property which prevents the occupier from being a trespasser.

However, the new Welsh legislation treats both residential licenses and tenancies in a similar way and provides largely mandatory forms of contract which must be used in both cases.

However, in both England and Wales, because they are living in their landlord’s own home and sharing living accommodation with them, lodgers are treated differently, and much of the normal protection awarded to tenants (in England) and contract holders (in Wales) do not apply to lodgers.

There are still differences between England and Wales which we will ‘flag up’ in this guide for you:

Rules which apply only in England will  be indicated by a small image of the English flag.  Probably most visitors to this site will be from England so you won’t need to worry about changes to the Welsh laws.

Rules which apply only in Wales will be indicated by a small image of the Welsh flag.  If you are based in Wales you should also read first the special page here, which explains the new rules in Wales as they affect lodgers and lodger landlords.

Text which is not flagged up will be applicable to both England and Wales.

Readers Problems

In order to illustrate the rules that apply, you will find some ‘readers problems’ at the bottom of some of the articles in this Guide.  They are all genuine questions that lodger landlords have asked us in the past.

He/She and You

To make it easier to write, landlords are referred to as ‘you’ and lodgers as ‘he’.  We realise that there are female lodgers, but using devices such as he/she are clumsy, and it just seems easier to use the same pronoun throughout.

Apologies to the feminists in the room.

Your Law Store Products

Lodger Landlord has a companion website Your Law Store which sells mostly Lodger-related forms and draft letters.

We will also be providing information about the various forms and guides which you can purchase from Your Law Store in this Guide, along with tips on which forms to use when.