Additional tenant Query - wants flexible contract?

Landlord Discussion Legal
1

Hi - I am fairly new to ‘land lording’ and certainly this is first time managing the property ourselves, I hope someone may be able to advise re this query,
We have a new tenant of a few weeks who signed for 12 months/ 6 month break. Before signing she indicated her cousin may like to join her in the rental but was not sure when. We said we would be happy to consider this but rental cost would need to go up for two of them for additional wear and tear etc
The couisin now want to join but wants to be flexible i.e… may 2-3 months maybe more. Trying to accomodate something like this via open rent seems quite cumbersome. Can anyone advise a way of doinfg this? if it’s possible so that contractually all parties are still safely covered?

Many thanks

2

If you sign a new AST your insurers will want a minimum six month contract
You may want to consider permitted occupier which gives you the flexibility an AST would not
@David122 has written about this in a previous post

3

Thanks , will take a look !

4

uhmm from I am reading permited occupier seems like the easiest route to go but we will need to forgo the additional rent we agreed. It seems like taking rent from a permitted occupier could ‘muddy the waters’. We could increase the rent cost for the existing tenant but again this would incurr new contract creation( which would be fine if doing it for the long term but if short term ie 2-3 months we would then have to craft another contract reducing the rental for the one tenant. )
All seems like a lot of hassle for a short term situation so tempted to do permitted occupier for the short term but then if that rolls on and on we will effectively lose out on additional rent for 12 months.
Can anyone offer any further clarity ? Thanks

5

Really can’t see why an additional occupier would lead to a rent increase? Is it a furnished property?
An extra person isn’t going to make much difference to wear and tear - different if they were a cat, dog or toddler lol!

Just do permitted occupier and increase the rent at the end of the 12 months.

6

I would give the tenant written permission to take a lodger provided your insurance or mortgage doesnt preclude this, (you should check). I dont think it prevents you increasing the rent.

You will need to:

  • advise the tenant that they will be the persons landlord and that they should familiarise themselves with the legal requirements
  • do a right to rent check on the cousin
  • not accept any payment from the cousin, but only from the tenant.