DD and locked room in rented house share

[gameofscrabble]

DD and four friends moving into second year uni house. When they went to view the house the landlord mentioned that he also offered the house to rent as a five bedroom if they were interested, as there is one box room with a single bed that he accepts much less rent on. DD and co said no because there was only four of them so accepted the house as a four bed arrangement. They didn’t see inside the room at the viewing as LL said they didn’t need to if they weren’t a group of 5.

Fast forward to moving in and the spare room door is still locked. LL reiterated what he’d said previously - that the girls had no need to see in there as they were a group of 4. I can completely understand this is probably because he doesn’t want them letting mates stay in the room all the time. But DD and friends have said they feel weird having no idea what’s in the room and they’d like to at least see inside.

Is the LL allowed to keep the door locked? 100% ready to be told that he is well within his rights to do so, we’re clueless when it comes to renting rules etc

Thanks so much Lockheart Will ask her if she’d like me to have a look over the agreement

I’ll let her know about the HMO laws too. I think part of her —and me— wishes there’d be a spooky backstory to the locked room but alas...

I lived in a 5 bed that was rented to 4 of us because if you rented to 5 or more there were extra obligations for the landlord to have fire doors on each bedroom etc (can't remember the exact legislation). So we had a spare room - fancy for students - although if it had been locked it would have driven me mad. As it is, unless it is an emergency escape route in case of fire, I don't think the landlord is doing anything wrong but as a student I would probably have tried to pick the lock...

Ah, cross posted with runout - that's it, it's the HMO rules!

HMOs are 3 or more unrelated 'households' (which can be one person) living in the same property.

4 unrelated people is an HMO. They would already fall under HMO rules.

Some councils have rules whereby 5 or more unrelated households have additional requirements under HMO laws.

However, this shouldn't affect the need to lock the room.

I currently live in an HMO and we turned one spare room into a dining room. There's no need to lock up rooms in case of subletting.

If it's a joint and several tenancy then the tenants have rights to the whole property and the landlord cannot deny them access to certain parts

It's still the landlord's house. They don't need to get into this room. They need to mind their own business.

It's none of DD's business....it doesn't impact them. They;'re being dramatic saying it's "weird" not to know. There'll be nothing in there but a bed and a side table or whatever. Tell them f they really want to see it to find another to share and the LL will open it up.

When they went to view the house the landlord mentioned that he also offered the house to rent as a five bedroom if they were interested, as there is one box room with a single bed that he accepts much less rent on

If he's accepting less rent for that room, he must be renting the rooms.

@ReanimatedSGB if the tenants have rented the whole property then they have the right to access the whole property and the landlord does not have the right to deny them that access. It is entirely their business.

If they have rented under individual contracts, then it is nothing to do with them, but from what the OP has described this does not seem to be the case.

@ZeroFuchsGiven not necessarily. You could charge say £1000 for the whole property with 4 people or £1100 for 5 people, but they could still be joint and several contracts rather than individual ones.

As DramaAlpaca says, we too have rented and in our case our kids were freaked out by a locked box room. We managed to sneak a peek inside to find it was full of ... boxes.

I was thinking similar stayathomegardener. Except we wouldn't have picked the locks, just screwed the hinges off with a kitchen knife.🤷‍♀️

Kids these days.🙄

I looked round a house with friends when I was in my early 20s. The Landlord showed us the house, and tried to skirt over the locked front room. (There was another living room at the back). My friend pressed him - "but what is this room?".

"Oh, that's just another room" he said "my friends stay here sometimes, nothing to worry about".

So his random mates would have a key to our front door, access to all of our house and their own locked room within it? And he didn't really want to tell us about it. I don't bloody think so!

We also had this in a student house in north London. It was locked for the duration of the tenancy for the reasons listed above regarding HMO.

Not uni housing, but regular house rental. This does happen, not that often. I’m friends with a number of exists in my area, here temporarily with jobs - 3, 4, 5 years. They live in rental houses. Some landlords are professional landlords but majority are brits who themselves are off on an expat adventure. Many of these houses have a garden room, a garage, box room etc locked and out of bounds storing owner’s possessions.

In one of my daughter’s Uni rental, very large Victorian house over 4 floors, there was a door under the stairs that looked as though it went to a basement level. This was a beautiful stained glass and heavy, ornate wood door similar to the front door. It was locked. No mention of it in the lease.

My grandparents had a house in a holiday town and another house elsewhere They’d rent each of their houses half the year (rent to one person for 6 months, not short term holiday letting), they too had one room locked with their possessions in them.

When I was at uni we had a locked boxroom. Someone found a key that turned out to fit the lock, it had the previous elderly owner's big wardrobe in it with clothes, a mirror, some books and some other bits, we didn't have more than a brief look. I don't recall this level of excitement over the locked room, nor thinking we had any kind of rights over a room we knew we hadn't rented. They should check the landlord can't and won't have anybody else staying there, beyond that maybe get hobbies.

But DD and friends have said they feel weird having no idea what’s in the room and they’d like to at least see inside.

Come on, weird? Is that the new term for nosey?!

I think their imaginations are running away with them and everyone loves a good story, he would have shown them the room if a 5th person was with them so surely there is nothing bad in there. He either doesn’t want them putting it on air bnb or it’s an insurance thing. Don’t encourage the mad thoughts that it’s haunted! It sounds a bit dramatic to be honest I wouldn’t even give it a second thought.

This isn't a hard thing to sort out. All they need is a willing accomplice friend that will come to the flat to view the room. What a shame its too small to get her computer desk in!

Tell LL the young people are concerned
If LL has nothing to hide job done

I can tell you why he is keeping it locked. No.1 he doesn’t want a 5th person staying in there splitting all of the current rent 5 ways, he would obviously to be paid for the 5th room being in use.
The second reason and probably most important is that after a group of uni students rent a house you normally have to redo the floor and paint in the bedrooms and have to replace mattresses as they DESTROY it. So that’s one room he shouldn’t have to worry about if they don’t need it.

LL has locked 5th from as your DD + friends haven't paid for it and may be CFs who will just use what they haven't paid for. As it is, they are probably just NFS (nosey fuckers )

I work in a lot of HMOs where the 5th bedroom is not let. Usually its because the 5th bedroom doesn't meet the minimum size requirements but sometimes its because the landlord doesn't want to put in extra facilities. I've never seen a locked one though. Most landlords let the tenants use them for storage, or put drying racks in them.

5th room, not 5th from

Whatever the reasons for keeping it locked if I were your dd I would deffo as suggested above ask to see it as there may be a fifth renter and/or get someone round to arrange a viewing of it when they are there. This for fire hazard/basic cleanliness reasons etc. If not rented the landlord is perfectly entitled to keep it locked and store things there - this doesn’t mean the renters aren’t perfectly entitled to have seen it with a view to getting a fifth in to share.
I don’t think it’s nosiness exactly - just normal wanting to feel ok about where you are living type feelings.

In the 90s I lived in a shared house with a locked room on the top floor. The landlord said he stored his train set collection in it as his wife didn't want it in the house.He popped by a couple of times to get stuff.Really nice man.Obviously one of us got drunk and picked the lock.Massive collection of 70/80s soft porn (well...just porn but you'd call it soft now)mags and videos.We all found it compleyely hilarious then REALLY creepy.