Which tenancy agreement do I need?

Earlier this month, a member gave our advice team a call with a query around the types of tenancy agreement that we offer. They were considering investing in HMOs and wanted to learn a little more about the types of tenancy agreements relating to this.

On the NRLA website, they had spotted that we have an agreement designed for renting to families, individuals and couples, that rents out the whole property; and we also offer an agreement that rents out an individual room and is designed for sharers.

This was new to our member and they wondered if there had been a change to the law that caused this.

Our adviser explained that there was no change to legislation or case law, it was just a way of advising our members as to what might be the most suitable type of agreement for them to use.

A joint tenancy agreement rents the entire property to everyone named as a tenant on that agreement.

They have rights over the entire property and can refuse the landlord access past the front door, citing their right of quiet enjoyment. There are no communal spaces, and everything is shared amongst all tenants. The rental amount must be met by that group each month between however many tenants there are.

A room only tenancy agreement rents out an individual room to the named tenant on that agreement, generally one person per room.

That person is responsible for the rent for their room and shares the communal areas of the property between the rooms with the other tenants and with the landlord.

The tenant can only express their right of quiet enjoyment over the room that they have rented, and whilst it is good practice to give notice, the landlord can enter the communal spaces freely provided they are not doing so to harass the tenant.

We recommend that our room only agreement is used for renting to unrelated sharers as the ability to move readily access the communal areas makes it much easier for landlords to meet their HMO management responsibilities.

Landlords should be aware that where a property is rented on a room only basis, it is likely that they will be considered to be responsible to pay council tax, although where rented solely to full time students there can be an exemption from this.

Our adviser also recommended that if this landlord was looking into investing in a HMO, they may also want to consider taking our eLearning HMO Fundamentals course.