If you’re moving in with roommates, you may be wondering how exactly you’ll all share your space and household responsibilities — without driving each other crazy. To be sure, living with roommates offers a number of great benefits, from cheaper rent to the possibility of cooking communal dinners or household game nights.
But no matter how much you love your roommates — in fact, especially if you’re friends with your roommates already before you move in together — creating a formal roommate agreement is a great way to ensure that your living experience is as smooth and happy as possible.
What is a roommate agreement?
First, let’s start with the basics: What exactly is a roommate agreement?
In short, a roommate agreement is designed to keep the peace between you and your roommates. A roommate agreement formally lays out the house rules about things like your guest policy or cleaning responsibilities and clarifies how the utilities and rent are paid. Because conflicts inevitably arise among humans who live together, a roommate agreement is a great way to guide you through any issues that do arise and to prevent some things from becoming major issues in the first place. And by guiding you through some of the biggest questions that roommates face when moving in together, a roommate agreement can also help open communication with your roomies before you even move in.
A roommate agreement can be a legally binding contract or a more informal document, but either way, it is an agreement among renters who are living together and doesn’t have anything to do with your landlord or your lease agreement.
What should be in a roommate agreement?
There are several potential issues you’ll want to consider when putting together a roommate agreement. Here are some of the most common ones.
Paying Rent
Your agreement should detail who pays how much rent and who is responsible for collecting the payment from everyone and submitting it to your landlord, assuming you’re not each paying rent to your landlord separately. You should also decide in advance whether rent is split evenly or some roommates pay more than others, for example, based on bedroom size.
Paying the Bills
In addition to your rent, you’ll also need to decide how to deal with monthly bills. Utility bills are often in one person’s name, which means one roommate may be responsible for collecting and submitting payments on behalf of everyone. There are plenty of bill-splitting apps that are perfect for this situation. Alternatively, each roommate might decide to take on a separate bill, so, for example, you pay the gas and electricity bills while your roommate pays for Wi-Fi and water. You can also include the date that roommates need to submit their portion of the bill so that utilities are paid in full and on time.
Paying for Communal Items
In some living situations, roommates buy their groceries collectively, going shopping and doing most of their cooking together. In other cases, each roommate buys their own food and other roommates need to ask before borrowing or using something from the kitchen that’s not theirs. Either way, your roommate agreement should clearly lay out your plan for groceries, plus arrangements for paying for other communal items like cleaning supplies and toilet paper.
Moving Out Early
While each roommate may intend to stay for the entire term of the lease, life happens. Someone might move out earlier than expected if they get a job in another city, lose their job and can’t afford rent, or just don’t get along with their roommates. Your roommate agreement can lay out your collective expectations for what will happen if someone moves out early, including whether they will need to find someone to sublet your room, how much notice they should give, and how to deal with returning the security deposit.
Handling the Security Deposit
Speaking of security deposits, your roommate agreement should explain how you plan to collectively handle paying for the security deposit and dividing it if your landlord doesn’t return the entire sum at the end of your lease. For example, will each roommate be accountable for paying for something they damaged in the unit out of your collective security deposit? Don’t forget to do a walk-through with your landlord and document the condition of the unit when you move in and when you leave to maximize the chances of getting your full security deposit back.
Household Chores
You’ll also need to agree on how to divide up the household chores that relate to shared living spaces. You may want to create a chore chart as part of your roommate agreement and divide up responsibility for cleaning bathrooms, the living room, and the kitchen so that no one gets stuck doing all of the work. Consider additional chores, too, such as taking out the trash.
This is also a great place to clearly set out your shared expectations for how each roommate will handle cleaning up after themselves. For example, you may decide that no one should leave dirty dishes in the kitchen sink for more than 24 hours, or that everyone can leave books and laptops out on the coffee table but not the kitchen table.
Guest Rules
Different ideas about rules for house guests can be a major source of conflict among roommates. Use your roommate agreement as an opportunity to decide on your guest policies in advance, including how many consecutive nights a guest can stay over, how much notice to give roommates when a guest is coming, and whether guests can stay on the couch or an air mattress in shared spaces.
Setting out a roommate agreement is a great way to set shared expectations and avoid conflict. If you’re on the hunt for your next apartment with roommates, search thousands of places for rent on Zumper and find one that works for everyone.
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