issues with lodger

But plenty of lodgers don’t regard their lodgings as their home. In fact as a rule it’s best to avoid ones that will, especially if they won’t have many other options.

International students, interns, contractors, can all make for good lodgers. They know it’s not forever and are looking ahead to their next move.

Trouble is he is paying to live in your home which then makes it his home too..

I would avoid putting in a kitchen in the room a kettle yeah that’s fine but a kitchen creates almost a separate living space and you might find your lodger ends up with the tenants rights.

Is there any chance you can put a kitchenette in the lodger's living space or something? Might be easier for you to tolerate a lodger if they had their own kitchen.

Hi op,

lodgers usually expect general conduct rules to be said or put on wall
It is perfectly fine for you to not want your lodgers to bring guests or have specific requests with regards to the kitchen…but you might find this particular lodger isn’t interested anymore and so you’d have to find someone else.
About the phone calls, I’d tell him. Why didn’t you?

It does sound like you are a peivate person so it might not be something that you are enjoying…to have a lodger. Remember, also, it is a person…not your mortgage payment.

Good luck 🌺

Is he your lodger? I couldn't quite understand..........

I think you need very clear ground rules.

Personally, I'd prefer to let to a female but there is always the possibility of any lodger almost taking over the home if they have a strong personality. I have friends in this position.

Sometimes the root of the problem is simply that a person needs the money so decides to rent out a room, but also resents the lodger being in the house once there. Those are perfectly understandable contrary states. It is a big thing to have a stranger move into your home. I have been a lodger a few times when younger and it is quite hard to be invisible and soundless at all times, but it is not difficult to be polite and considerate. Likewise assuming that having a visitor over for a meal is OK without asking first was a mistake. Phone calls routed through a loudspeaker would annoy me (as I expect it would most people), and it would have been polite not to say politick had the lodger asked if he might have the use of the kitchen to entertain. I would have made sure that the ground rules were clear before letting out a room so that both parties understood that mutual respect and consideration were required for both to have a successful and happy home life. Some lodgers are simply wrong uns, as are some hoseholders. I found renting a room in a family home was easier than doing so with a single resident householder. Others may have has the opposite experience. Not everyone is cut out to have lodgers or to be a lodger. You may have better luck with the next person, or you may do worse.

Tbh if he pays on time, is clean, respects your things and has had one friend by for tea at the table he sounds a great lodger.

I think it is a mistake- not having a contract

It means no tenancy rights or obligations for either party.

It's your house but it's both your home

In which case I'd wrote a list of the things that bug you and review them with someone as which are reasonable and where you're being too prickly.

Then talk to the lodger, lay out your expectations and expect they may have stuff to talk through too

Probably that you have to be specific in your contract. Is he a room mate or renting just his room.

Yes it is polite to mention if you're having a guest but he's not required to unless his contract is clear about guests and kitchen privileges. If he'd told you he was bringing someone for tea you still would have had to cook and leave the kitchen. And he'd your lodger not your guest so unless your contract says otherwise he doesn't need your permission.

Also if your only complaint is one night he cooked for a friend and they chatted at the table and sometimes you hear his calls you're doing well sounds a nice chap. If you still aren't happy maybe you'd be better without the lodger

It also means being able to negotiate no notice or very little notice, so much less obligation, pack up and leave in a matter of days sometimes. It means no household bills, very few responsibilities.

Great if you want somewhere to go home to during the wek if you live too far from work to commute.

Not great if you want to socialise with friends, play at Masterchef in the kitchen, watch films sprawled out on a sofa...

So being a lodger means paying as much as a tenant but constantly walking on eggshells around the owner. It’s about wanting his money but not willing to let him live there comfortably?

Sounds like a horrible arrangement for both parties.

The lodger should be paying the going rate!

It doesn't matter if the op has a massive mortgage or a tiny one. Literally irrelevant and none of anyone's business.

Exact terms very much depend on what is agreed. It's up to the landlord to set these expectations at the outset, not keep moving the goalposts. There isn't some official Lodging template that everyone is expected to know (I'm sure there are suggested ones available). Lodging is not necessarily short term. Some people lodge for years. My family members have had lodgers who have had own bathroom but full access to living areas should they wish. Very much her home for a number of years.

It was a bit of a drip feed that this boils down to you not liking his guest's tone in large part. Perhaps she has misread the situation or he simply hasn't specified. There is no rule that he has to. Perhaps it was a clumsy compliment.

I think you need to take a lot more accountability for the situation unfolding not to your liking the other day. You could have made clear before him moving in that you expect notification/ request when guests visit. You could have been more assertive about using the kitchen. You could have specified that he entertains guests in his rooms. You could have responded 'thank you yes, that's why I decided to rent out part of the house'.

In London at least, there’s often no difference between the price a live-in-landlord will charge for a room, and the price of a room in a flatshare with equal housemates.

That’s down to the amount of competition for rooms. And also as a lodger you’ll usually be staying in a property that’s had more spent on it and is better looked after.

Though the lack of freedom may mean the tradeoff isn’t worthwhile, it does suit plenty.

You got pretty lucky then.

I have had lodgers - most of whom expected to stay in their rooms. I didn't allow guests, no one had an issue with that. My last lodger stayed nearly 3 years, and we did relax rules, share cooking sometimes, hang out in the living room together, but he was absolutely the exception, not the rule.

I have been a lodger multiple times - again the norm was as I describe with some people being more relaxed on occasion.

Our family have had loads of lodgers, again the norm as I describe is what they expected.

Of course you can have pretty much any set up you like regarding household rules, who eats where, guests etc - thats the great thing about having lodgers, it is or it can be, very flexible.

But it does make sense to have rules and make them clear from the start, which I think the OP is realising she hasn't really done, because people seem to have very different understandings (And it seems her lodger doesn't really want to be seen as a lodger, at least by his girlfriend!).

The lodger should be paying less than the equivalent house share. I don’t know how old he is, but he sounds pretty young not to understand how it works. Doesn’t sound like a good fit at all. When I had one lodger, I would charge a third of all the bills.

Of course the lodger isn’t entitled to the asset—which is why he shouldn’t be paying half of the mortgage. Which is why it matters that OP keeps saying that she pays more than him.

@lodger I mean this kindly, but I'm not sure you are cut out for having a lodger - at least not at the moment, when you have just moved home to a brand new area and your DH only passed last year?

You have referred to Boundaries being pushed, several times, but the thing is, that from your posts, it appears that most of the boundaries when this man moved in were in your head rather than being communicated to him. Neither of you are wrong, just not singing from the same hymn sheet.

I'm glad that you have spoken to him, but you need to think carefully about what your boundaries are and what you can live with. You need to think it all through and not drip-feed to your lodger, more and more things that you don't like, as time goes on, that irritate you. That's par for the course when you have someone else living in the house - they are not children. It's not a fully contained area that you have to rent out. Any lodger is going to need to use the kitchen. Some more minor irritations will need to be lived with. If you can't do that ( and yes it is your house, and it's not at all unreasonable for you to feel that way), then maybe taking a lodger isn't for you at all? Not fair to you and not fair to any potential lodger?

You need to be very clear in your own mind, as to what the actual boundaries are, and agree them with any potential lodger. Thus far and no further type boundaries. Little irritations WILL happen with any lodger

The GF shouldn't have come into the living room without at least knocking, but you are possibly reading too much into her tone of voice? Curious to know what you said to her when she said that? I would have said something like 'Yes, it is a big house, which is why I thought I would take in a lodger as I have all that space upstairs'. Only need to share the Kitchen and it is a big room!

Hope you can sort things out with the current lodger, but as I say, decide what the ground rules that really matter to you are, write them down into a contract and go over them with any future lodger.

You could also tell your current lodger that you haven't taken in lodgers before and you are sorry that you didn't communicate properly at the beginning about the boundaries and let him see what the contract will be going forward?

Are the figures relevant?

Of course he walks away with none of the asset. He's a lodger.

Just because that's your experience doesn't mean it's the same for everyone despite what you seem to think 🙄

DH was a lodger in a house for a while. He had his own room, a shared bathroom and access to the kitchen. No overnight guests and no access to the living room but no one was expected to 'scuttle' anywhere.