What type of agreement AST/lodger?

jamie11

I think you are clutching at straws, this plan is fraught with chances to go wrong.

00ec25

the-mango wrote: »

I've checked and it won't be a HMO.
Although the property will not be owned by me I will be the one in charge of letting it so all that wil be in my name.

yes - you will be sub letting with permission from your father (the owner). Make sure you and he are very clear on each others respective legal liabilites towards your tenants - I think they will be tenants not lodgers given what you have said so far:
- they have their own secure rooms
- you are not fully resident
- you don't own the place

make sure the insurance knows what their status is
make sure you and father meet the relevant safety requirements
it may not be an HMO for licensing purposes but it is an HMO for council tax purposes, the 2 are different things

Hump

The hazard for the unwary here is the possibility of inadvertantly creating a tenancy (even though it won't be an assured shorthold tenancy because you are a resident landlord - it will be a 'common law' tenancy meaning you will need a court order to evict - see Protection from Eviction Act 1977)

The Protection from Eviction Act 1977 provides for a tenancy or licence being excluded if—

(a)under its terms the occupier shares any accommodation with the landlord or licensor; and
(b)immediately before the tenancy or licence was granted and also at the time it comes to an end, the landlord or licensor occupied as his only or principal home premises of which the whole or part of the shared accommodation formed part.

For it to be a licence you must as Yorkie1 says above retain a right of access to their room to provide services such as cleaning AND you must regularly exercise that right!

Hence if you let a room before you start living there or whilst you are not living there (regardless of whether you retain a room and your possessions there) then you will create a tenancy.

So someone who lets a room in their house then goes on 2 weeks holiday and returns is absolutely fine.

However someone who might be ordinarily resident elsewhere is going to have trouble IF the lodger/ tenant contests their right of residence.

the-mango

Thanks for your advice so far. As far as council tax goes, we are all exempt being students so that is not an issue (I don't think)

Thanks Hump for bringing that up, I will be living there when they move in as I will be there first for at least a month.

To put it more simply, surely this situation must have come up in the past, I know other people at my univeristy have done it. What happens if a parent buys a house for a student to live in at uni and they then let it to their friends/other students? What have people done?