Appropriate lodger agreement

[ajandjjmum]

DD owns a (mortgaged) flat in London, and rents out her spare room to another girl.

She has accepted a position elsewhere in the country, and needs to rent out her own room to cover her new rent. She is reluctant (understandably) to sell, as she needs to be sure that the new job works out.

Historically she has used the standard Spareroom lodger agreement - would it be ok for her to continue to do this under the circumstances?

Be grateful for any thoughts/experience.

Pretty sure that in the eyes of the law, it would be insufficient to protect her. Someone is only defined as a lodger if they share your home with you. If she doesn’t live there they would be tenants who have different rights.

Indeed. You can't use a lodger agreement if you aren't living there. Lodgers have a lot lessrm rights than tenants whose landlord lives elsewhere, because the law recognises that a lodger is a (paying) guest in the landlords own home, and so the landlord's rights to benefit from and enjoy their own home takes precedence.

If the landlord lives elsewhere then this simply doesn't apply and you must use a proper tenancy agreement. This gives the tenant much more rights as the property is considered their home, and they have the right to quiet enjoyment of their home provided they keep to their obligations under the contract. You can't avoid tenants acquiring these rights by failing to have a tenancy agreement though - they will acquire their rights de facto as soon as there exists evidence of you accepting rent in exchange for their occupying the property which is not your own home. But your own rights to evict them abd enforce reasonable terms are not protected in that outcome, so it's a bad idea.

Potentially you might be able to find wriggle-room if you only rent out your room mon-fri and you return at weekends and still classify the place as your home (eg keeping all the bills in your own name) and the place you rent elsewhere isn't your "main" residence. Not sure how that would be viewed legally.

If she needs to rent out both rooms, then she will no longer be a live-in landlord, because she won't be living there.

Therefore, the occupants will no longer be lodgers, but tenants with more rights.