Signing a house share with friends? What to check before you sign
25/08/2026
September is peak season for house shares. Students, graduates and young professionals will be signing last-minute tenancy agreements, moving into their new accommodation, and some will already be looking for places to live next year, often without reading much past the rent and deposit figures.
The short answer
In a joint tenancy, you are not just responsible for your own room and your own share of the rent; each of you is responsible for all of it.
And since the tenancy reforms in the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 came into force, any one of your housemates can end the tenancy for everybody by giving written notice. For most new assured periodic tenancies, this will be two months, unless a shorter notice period has been agreed.”
Joint tenancy or separate agreements?
There are two common setups, and they carry very different risks.
A joint tenancy is a single agreement signed by everyone. You all share the same rights and the same responsibilities for the whole property, and importantly, each of you is responsible for the whole rent, not just your share. If a housemate stops paying or moves out, that liability does not disappear, and the landlord can generally pursue any joint tenant for the whole rent.
Individual tenancies mean each person signs their own contract for their own room, which is also common in houses in multiple occupation. Your rent and other contractual liabilities will generally relate to your own tenancy rather than your housemates’ rent.
Check which one you are being asked to sign. A joint tenancy will normally name every tenant on the same document.
What does joint and several liability mean?
It means each tenant is responsible for the full rent, not just their individual share.
If a housemate stops paying or leaves without sorting things out properly, the landlord can pursue any of the other tenants for the remaining balance, even if those tenants have already paid their own share.
The same principle applies to damage. If there is a large hole in the kitchen door at the end of the tenancy, the landlord can seek to have the cost of a new door deducted from the deposit, which is usually held as a single sum for the whole property rather than automatically divided between you. Where one tenant accepts responsibility, the rest of you can agree that it comes out of their share when the remaining deposit is divided up, so the cost falls on the person responsible. Where responsibility is disputed, it is harder to resolve and is a common source of friction between housemates.
Important changes in the law
Assured shorthold tenancies were abolished on 1 May 2026. If you are renting a house or flat privately as a group, you now have an assured periodic tenancy: no fixed end date, rolling on until somebody ends it. University halls, qualifying purpose-built student accommodation and lodging with a live-in landlord sit outside this regime and work differently.
Under the changes made by Section 20 of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025, a tenant can end a new assured periodic tenancy by giving two months’ notice in writing, unless a shorter period has been agreed.
What may come as a surprise is that in a joint tenancy, a valid notice to quit given by one tenant ends the tenancy for everybody. The rest of you cannot carry on under the same agreement.
If the others want to stay, they need the landlord to grant a new tenancy. The landlord does not have to, and can set a different rent. The once a year limit on rent rises protects you during an existing tenancy, not at the start of a new one.
You were always liable for the full rent, so that has not changed. What changes is the total and how many of you are splitting it.
However, there is often a better and more straightforward way. Most landlords would rather keep a property occupied than empty, so it is possible to agree to find a replacement tenant instead. This has to be arranged with the landlord, who does not have to agree to it.
What about the deposit?
The basic rules regarding deposit protection remain the same
Your landlord must protect the deposit in a government approved scheme within 30 days of receiving it, and give you prescribed information about where it is being held. If they do not, you may be entitled to compensation.
The deposit is capped at five weeks’ rent where the annual rent is under £50,000, or six weeks’ rent where the annual rent is between £50,000 and £100,000.
Rent in advance
Since 1 May 2026 a landlord cannot ask for or accept any rent before the tenancy agreement is signed, and cannot require more than one month’s rent in advance for a monthly tenancy.
A holding deposit is still permitted and is capped at one week’s rent.
If you have been asked for several months upfront because you do not have a UK guarantor, that is no longer lawful for tenancies entered into on or after 1 May 2026.
What to do now
- Confirm whether you are signing a joint tenancy or an individual room agreement.
- Read who is named on the agreement. Everyone named shares the liability.
- Agree between yourselves what happens if somebody wants to leave, and put it in writing.
- If a parent or family member is acting as guarantor, check exactly what the guarantee covers. Some cover the rent for the whole property rather than one person’s share.
- Check the deposit has been protected and that you have received the prescribed information.
Speak to our team
If you are dealing with a dispute over rent, a deposit, or a tenancy that has been brought to an end, contact our civil litigation team to see how we can help.
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