ANDYou need a new place to live. Your friend has a free room. In theory, it should be a win-win. You know you get along with them and maybe they'll charge you less than the (exorbitant) market rate. They say they could use the extra money. And your new “friend” will surely be easier to deal with than some anonymous owner, right?
Against the tumultuous backdrop of the UK property market, it is easy to see the appeal of a setup like this. Finding a place to rent that's affordable (and hasn't been last renovated in the previous millennium) can seem like an impossible feat, especially in a big city full of potential renters like you (but with better salaries).
And, on the other side of the property. division, homeowners are also looking for ways to mitigate the rising cost of living. According to the roommate search platform SpareRoom, the number of landlords taking in tenants increased by 89 percent between January 2021 and January 2024.
But what if the heat goes out in the middle of winter and your supposedly trustworthy friend ignores the problem? Or if they start complaining every time you put in a new load of laundry? When friend becomes friend, there is always the risk of a relationship between equals becoming an unequal (or potentially toxic) power dynamic. What if everything goes wrong? You could lose a friendship and end up scrolling through SpareRoom again.
Jessica* had recently started working for herself when she realized that Lily* had posted on Instagram that she wanted to rent a room to a friend. Recently self-employed, she was not in a position to buy her own home, but she wanted a change of scenery. And the house, he adds, was “beautiful,” so he “joyfully accepted” the deal.
However, once he moved there, he soon realized that while his new abode He looked great on social media, he was actually “falling apart.” His new friend, meanwhile, went on a trip and wouldn't do anything about the repairs “unless I harassed him.”[ed] To make matters worse, Lily sometimes still asks for advance rental and then shows off her new purchases (including, take a deep breath, Labubus) on social media. Oh, and the bailiffs have turned up to chase your unpaid bills.
Jessica is still thinking about buying her first home and “dreads” the moment when she will have to break the news to her friend, who “has no source of income” other than rent, “but I can't make that my problem,” she says.
Lily's parents helped her buy her house, something that seems to emerge as a common theme when you start looking at relationships between friends and tenants. It is a situation that can cause resentment to arise, even between close people; Living with a constant reminder of the financial disparity between you and your friend isn't always easy.
James* lived with his current friend for years in a simpler shared flat, before ending up buying a property with the help of his parents. Moving to their new place seemed like the next logical step. But while they remain great friends, “it's obviously a little discouraging that we find ourselves at different economic times in life because of our parents, which makes me jealous sometimes,” he says.
It's hard not to be aware that she “is benefiting from me, which is a bit annoying when she's booking holidays and buying clothes with the money I've paid her,” James adds. “Many of my other friends think it's unfair that I help her with her mortgage, especially when the deposit wasn't paid by her but by her parents.”
This dynamic, however, is not necessarily easy for Mr. Friend to navigate either. Mate* had “a conveyor belt of very close friends” living in her house for about a decade, and was “always aware” of the possibility of building resentment over money (one former housemate, she says, seemed well aware that “her money would go into an account that I would then use for my own leisure”).
To counteract this, he charged low rents – “I would feel guilty if I charged them market rate” – as well as “making sure there is always communication” and trying to resolve any problems quickly… even when one of the housemates arrived with some very unwanted baggage: bed bugs. “I had to shell out a couple of grand,” he says; It was “a true test of friendship.”
Another complicating factor? It can be difficult to predict the ebbs and flows of friendship. And if you suddenly fall from grace, you can end up in a sticky situation, as Jodie discovered after moving to Manchester to live in her friend's guest room.
The setup “worked well for the first six months,” Jodie says, but things “very quickly went wrong” when her friend “started allowing a family friend of his to also stay at the house full time” in another bedroom, which also doubled as an office. “They no longer invited me to social events because the other friend went with her,” she explains. “I felt increasingly left out and also felt like I was paying for my friend to live there as she wasn't contributing to the bills.”
When she mentioned this to her friend, “as I felt it necessary to say,” the response was dismissive. “He said he didn't need me anymore for the mortgage payments anyway, so I could leave.” Jodie ended up leaving Manchester and returning to her hometown as she “couldn't stay as long as I needed to find a place”. [new]”.
The friendship, he adds, “never recovered, as I felt that I had been used a lot when it suited her and then put aside when she no longer needed me.” You probably won't be surprised to learn that they “lost contact the moment I moved.”
Many of my other friends think it's unfair that I help her with her mortgage.
Of course, for every horror story, there's a more heartwarming anecdote about lifelong friendships. Roisin ended up moving in with a former housemate and his partner when they bought a flat in north London with a spare room.
“They were the absolute best roommates, caring and supporting me during a particularly manic and intense time in my career,” he says. “They didn't mind that I came home early in the morning after a concert and then got up at dawn to return to the office.” The fact that they were both amazing cooks also sweetened the deal. “In fact, sometimes I still miss living with them, but fortunately we are still close.”
Before jumping headlong into a new living situation, it's essential to remember that renters have different rights than renters. If your friend who owns the property lives there next to you and you share living spaces such as the kitchen or bathroom, then you are considered a tenant or an 'excluded occupier', rather than a tenant, explains Manjinder Kaur Atwal, housing director and solicitor at Duncan Lewis Solicitors. “That means you have a lot fewer legal protections,” he says.
In most cases, Atwal adds, “a resident landlord can ask the tenant to leave with 'reasonable notice,'” which is often equal to the rental period (so if you pay monthly, you can expect a month's notice), “and they typically don't need a court order.” Tenants rent from a landlord who No Those who live on the property, he explains, “normally have a secured tenancy, which gives them greater protection. Eviction requires the correct legal notice and, normally, a court process.”
In Atwal's experience, the most common causes of disputes have to do with rent and notice periods. “Without a written agreement, disagreements over payment dates, rent increases, or how much notice should be given can quickly become personal,” he says. So while it may be embarrassing to pressure your friend into handing over a document like this, doing so is surely less awkward than having an argument later.
This document doesn't have to be complicated, Atwal says, “but it should clearly state the rent, when it is paid, how much notice is required, and what areas are shared.” Having clarity from day one, he adds, “can protect both the housing situation and the friendship.” However, what you can't do is stop them from spending their rent money on Labubus.
*Name has been changed
