Part 3 of my series looking at different types of tenancy agreements.
When talking about tenancy agreements for property let by resident landlords we need to be clear whether we are renting to a lodger or to a tenant. They are very different.
Lodgers
A lodger is generally someone who lives with the landlord sharing living accommodation. Typically the landlord will be someone who has a spare room and wants to make a bit of money by renting it out. Although ‘lodger’ is not a legal term, it is generally agreed that a lodger agreement is almost invariably a license and not a tenancy.
You will find a lot more about the law relating to lodgers on my free website Lodger Landlord
Note that people doing this are entitled to a tax free income under the rent a room scheme of £4,250.
Tenancies
On the other hand, if you rent out self contained accommodation in the same building that you live in yourself, this will be a tenancy. Although note that the resident landlord rules will not apply if the property is a purpose built block of flats where the landlord lives in one and the tenant in another.
A common situation will be where you have a ‘granny annex’ or self contained ‘garden flat’. Or if you have a property which is too big for you, and divide it into self contained flats which you rent out to tenants keeping one to live in yourself.
Some legal points
Lodgers have considerably fewer rights than tenants. In particular so long as they share living accommodation with the landlord they are not normally protected under the Protection from Eviction Act which means that they can be evicted from the property without a court order.
Tenancies granted by resident landlords are not ASTs – this is specifically set out in schedule 1 (10) of the Housing Act 1988. This means that your tenancy will fall under the common law and slightly different rules will apply to those which apply to assured and assured shorthold tenancies.
Tenancy Deposits. Note that in neither case do tenancy deposits require protecting under a scheme. The tenancy deposit rules ONLY apply to deposits taken for assured shorthold tenancies.
What about the tenancy agreements then?
If you are renting a room to a lodger you should use a lodger agreement. You can buy these, along with some other useful forms, on my Your Law Store site. There is also an agreement for a ‘Monday to Friday’ lodger agreement.
If you are a resident landlord renting out self contained accommodation on a tenancy, then your tenancy agreement needs to state this. Resident landlord agreements are not that common, but they are around. I have a couple on Landlord Law.
Next time I will be looking at company lets.
NB If you want to check what tenancy type is suitable for YOUR property visit my Which Tenancy Agreement Guide. All Landlord Law members can create unlimited tenancy agreements via our Document Generator service.