Hi, so not me but my mum has a lodger lined up.

The girl is a friend of a friend but my mum needs to know how to do the legal thing.

I have had a google and it appears that she needs to get an “excluded occupier” contract from the internet somewhere and does not need to bother with the DPS as she will just be letting a room in the 3 bed house she is living in.

Is there anything more to it than that legally, and does anyone have any other advice on how to make things go smoothly?

Thanks

Stay away from the bottom drawer.

Sounds about right.

My experiences with lettings (on both sides) is, if they seem like idiots, they are and it will end horribly. No ammount of contracts or law will change that.

Probably useful info here:

https://www.gov.uk/rent-room-in-your-home/becoming-a-resident-landlord

I used spareroom and never bothered with a written contract, I used the technique of telling EVERYBODY that somebody had already seen room and had first refusal – as it gave me a nice way to say no if I didn’t like the look of them.

may impact council tax (single person discount)

need to tell mortgage and insurance companies
(both were ok with me BUT they did not cover theft by lodger …..)

get lodgers email and phone no ,do a internet search (facebook etc etc) etc etc to see what you find

if they move in get a photocopy of lodgers passport/driving licence etc just in case

need to have discussed and agreed house rules – and remember it’s a two way cut – your house/but they pay to live there – so noise, responsibilities, partners, cleaning, heatring, who pays what ……….