Free roommate agreement template

The landlord can pursue any one of you for all of the rent

This is the part people find out too late. Most residential leases signed by more than one tenant make every tenant jointly and severally liable, which means each tenant is responsible for the whole of the rent rather than for a share of it. If your roommate stops paying and moves out, the landlord is not obliged to chase them. The landlord can pursue whoever is easiest to collect from, and that is usually whoever still lives there and has a job. Your roommate agreement does not change that, and no roommate agreement can, because the landlord never agreed to it. Clause 2 says so expressly and clause 3 makes both roommates acknowledge it in writing. What the agreement does do is give you a claim against the roommate who did not pay. Clause 6 turns money you paid to cover their share into a debt they owe you, repayable within thirty days, and lets you set it against their share of the deposit. That claim is worth having, and small claims court is built for it. Be realistic as well: a judgment is only worth what the other person can actually pay, and a roommate who left owing three months' rent may not be collectable at all. That is an argument for acting early under clause 14 rather than letting a debt build, and for pushing the clause 12 replacement process instead of quietly carrying somebody. So read your lease before you sign anything, and look for the words joint and several. If they are there, understand that you are underwriting your roommate. Choosing who you live with is a financial decision as much as a social one.

How to fill it in

The three schedules at the back carry most of the content. Fill them in together, in one sitting, before anyone moves in.

• Schedule A: rooms, rent shares, deposit contributions, and whose name each utility account is in. That last column matters more than it looks, because the person named on the account is the one the utility company pursues.
• Schedule B: the house rules. Be specific. "Be considerate about guests" is not a rule, it is a disagreement waiting to happen. A number of consecutive nights and a notice period is a rule.
• Schedule C: move-in condition and who owns what. Photograph every room on the day you move in and keep the photographs with the agreement. Nothing else you do at move-in protects your deposit as well for so little effort.
• Clause 5: pick how rent is split. Equal is simplest. By room is fairer where one bedroom is much larger or has the only en suite, and the reason should be recorded so nobody reopens it later.
• Clause 5 also covers who pays the landlord. If one of you collects and forwards everyone's money, that person is taking on real risk, and the clause requires them to show proof of payment on request.
• Both roommates initial the acknowledgment at the back. It records that you both understood the joint and several liability position.

Splitting rent by room, not by head

An equal split is the default assumption and it is often the wrong one. Bedrooms in shared houses are rarely equivalent: one has a window onto a wall, one has the only closet, one is barely large enough for a bed, and one has an en suite. Charging the same for all of them produces a slow-burning resentment that surfaces as an argument about something else entirely. A workable method is to start from equal shares, then adjust for the things that measurably differ: square footage, whether the room has its own bathroom, natural light, noise, and whether a room doubles as a route to somewhere else. Write the reasoning into Schedule A. The number matters less than the fact that both of you agreed it once, in writing, when nobody was annoyed. One caution. If the shares are wildly unequal, check the lease before you rely on the arrangement, because some leases limit who may occupy which parts of the property, and a roommate paying very little may find their position harder to defend if the household breaks up. Clause 1 makes the lease control where the two conflict.

What you must not do when it goes wrong

Living arrangements fail, and the way they fail is where people create real legal problems for themselves. Clause 14 says this in the document, and it is worth stating plainly here.

• You cannot evict your roommate. Only the landlord can bring an eviction, and only through the process the state requires. A roommate agreement does not give you that power, whatever it says.
• Do not change the locks. Locking a lawful occupant out is unlawful in most states, and doing it can leave you owing your roommate damages even when they were the one in the wrong.
• Do not remove their belongings or put them outside. Same principle, and it converts a rent dispute into a claim against you.
• Do not cut off a utility to force someone out. Like the others, this is unlawful in most states as a self-help eviction, and courts treat it seriously.
• Do not stop paying your share to punish them. The landlord is not adjudicating your dispute, and joint and several liability means non-payment damages your position rather than theirs.
• What you can do is use clause 14: give written notice of the breach, allow the correction period, and if it is a money problem, claim the debt in small claims court. Keep the written record, because the roommate who has documentation usually wins these.

When a roommate moves out early

This is the second most common failure point after money, and clause 12 is the answer to it. The mechanism is straightforward: thirty days' written notice, the leaving roommate stays liable for their share until the lease ends or an approved replacement takes over, and the leaving roommate has to look for that replacement while the remaining roommates cannot unreasonably refuse a reasonable candidate. The part that catches people is the deposit. A leaving roommate usually expects their deposit share back on the day they go, and that is not how it works, because the landlord holds a single deposit for the property and returns it at the end of the tenancy. Clause 8 and clause 12 therefore give the leaving roommate their share only when the landlord actually pays out, unless a replacement roommate buys them out directly, which is the cleaner arrangement and the one worth aiming for. The other trap: being released by your roommates is not the same as being released from the lease. Only the landlord can do that, in writing. A roommate who moves out with everyone's blessing and no landlord paperwork is still a named tenant, still jointly and severally liable, and can still be pursued for rent on a property they have not lived in for a year. Clause 12 says this in terms.

Choosing a roommate and the discrimination question

People are often unsure how far anti-discrimination law reaches into picking who they live with. The answer distinguishes the choice itself from how you advertise. On the choice, the Ninth Circuit held in Fair Housing Council v. Roommate.com, LLC, decided 2 February 2012 (666 F.3d 1216), that the Fair Housing Act does not apply to the sharing of living units. (The singular spelling is correct for this decision. Earlier rulings in the same long-running litigation, on a different question, are reported under Roommates.com, so both spellings turn up in searches.) The reasoning is about the privacy interest in your own home, and the practical consequence within that circuit is that selecting a roommate on grounds that would be unlawful in an ordinary rental is treated differently from a landlord choosing a tenant. Two qualifications matter before anyone relies on that. This is one federal circuit, and state and local law is a separate question: a number of states and cities have their own fair housing rules, and some reach shared living arrangements more broadly than federal law does. And advertising is treated differently from selection, so a listing stating a prohibited preference can be a problem even where the choice itself is not. Clause 13 of this template is drafted to reflect both points: it requires the roommates not to select or refuse anyone on a basis applicable law prohibits, and not to publish an advertisement stating a prohibited preference. If this matters to your situation, check your city's rules rather than relying on the federal position.

Roommate agreement, sublease or lease

These three describe different relationships and picking the wrong one leaves you unprotected. Use a roommate agreement when you are co-tenants: two or more people named on the same lease, equal in status, each with a direct relationship with the landlord. Nobody is anybody's landlord, and the agreement only settles things between you. Use a sublease when one person is the tenant and the other rents from them. There the original tenant becomes the subtenant's landlord, takes on the obligations that come with that, and stays fully responsible to the actual landlord for everything the subtenant does. Most leases require written permission before subletting, and doing it without permission is a common way to lose a tenancy. Use a lease or a room rental agreement when a property owner is renting a room in their own home to someone. That is a landlord and tenant relationship, with all the notice and eviction rules that come with it. The quick test: are you both on the lease? If yes, this template. If one of you is on the lease and the other pays them, you want a sublease, and you need the landlord's permission first.

If you are the one collecting everyone's rent

In most shared houses one person ends up as the de facto treasurer, collecting everyone's share and sending one payment to the landlord. It is convenient and it quietly concentrates the risk on that person.

• You are the one the landlord sees. If a roommate pays you late and you pay the landlord late, the late fee and the record of it attach to the payment you made.
• Set your collection date earlier than the rent date. Clause 5 uses the 25th of the preceding month, which gives you time to chase somebody before the landlord is affected.
• Never let the money mix with your own spending. Keep it in a separate account or forward it the day it arrives, and send proof of payment to the house every month without waiting to be asked.
• Get the late payment terms in clause 6 filled in with real numbers. A per-day amount that costs more than the inconvenience of paying on time is what actually changes behaviour.
• Consider not doing it at all. Many landlords will accept separate payments from each tenant, and several rent-splitting services will collect from each roommate directly. Ask before you volunteer.
• If a roommate keeps paying late, put it in writing each time. Clause 14 needs a written record, and a chain of messages is what makes a small claims case simple.

Is it actually enforceable

Yes, as a contract between the roommates, provided it is written down and signed. Roommate agreements are ordinary contracts and courts treat the money parts of them as such. The realistic forum is small claims court, which is designed for exactly this: low value, no lawyers required, and a filing fee that is usually modest. What enforcement looks like in practice is narrower than people expect. The money terms are the enforceable core: unpaid rent, unpaid utilities, deposit deductions, damage. A judge can order a roommate to pay you what they owe. The lifestyle terms are different. No court is going to order anybody to do the dishes or observe quiet hours, and a claim built on the cleaning rota will not get far. That does not make Schedule B pointless, because its value is in preventing arguments rather than in winning them, and a written rule agreed by everyone in advance settles most disputes without anyone going anywhere near a court. What makes a claim work is the paperwork. A signed agreement, Schedule A showing the agreed shares, move-in photographs, and a message trail showing you raised the problem in writing. That evidence beats a better argument almost every time.

A note on what this page is

This is a general-purpose template and general information, not legal advice. Landlord and tenant law is state and often city law, and the rules on eviction, self-help, deposits and shared housing vary a great deal between them. Your lease also matters more than this document does, because it is the agreement the landlord can actually enforce against you. Read both, and if you are dealing with an eviction, a lockout or a deposit dispute of real size, get advice locally or contact a tenants' rights service in your area.