Make your Free Room Rental Agreement

Room Rental Agreements are documents that can be used to add a roommate, to allow someone to sublet your room while you are away, or to permit someone to finish the term of your lease in a shared apartment. Signing this essential document can reduce the risk of potential disagreements ahead. When ready, you can tap or click on the button labeled "Make document" to check out the sample Room Rental Agreement.

Even if you are providing the rental as a favor, you should always sign a Room Rental Agreement with lodgers and all other room renters. Making a Room Rental Agreement will most likely be a smart move for you because of the benefits outlined here:

• There is no confusion about rental fees
• Roles and responsibilities are understood by everyone
• There are no surprises about how long the rental will last

Any landlord choosing not to use this document, in many cases, should anticipate some issues, including the miscommunication of start and end dates for the rental and questions about payment dates.

Fortunately, you won't have to start from scratch when getting your agreement in writing. With the document tools on Rocket Lawyer, you can produce a free Room Rental Agreement with ease. Your document is built section by section as you enter more details. Ordinarily, for this level of personalization, you could end up paying a conventional law firm a few hundred dollars, if not more, in fees.

To complete your Room Rental Agreement online, you'll need to prepare the following details in advance:

• The location and description of the property
• The lessee's contact information
• How much you will charge for rent
• What the start and end dates are for the rental
• What kind of utilities or services will be included

As expected, your contract will also include guidelines about short- or long-term guests, pets, overdue payments, smoking and/or narcotics, and early move-out. In the process of making your rental contract, you also can include details related to maintenance procedures, insurance requirements, and furnishings. With the Rocket Lawyer document tool, you have the power to make additional modifications, as needed.

When you share this document with someone that you are subletting to or a new roommate, you'll want to also include a copy of the original lease, so that they have a copy of the original agreement and terms therein. If the building where the room is located was built or altered before 1978, you'll likely need to include the lead-paint disclosures that were included with the original lease.

As with any other legal contract, a leasing agreement for room rental is not legally binding until it is signed by all parties. This document from Rocket Lawyer offers much more than a Room Rental Agreement template or blank PDF file that you might find elsewhere. When you build your Room Rental Agreement on Rocket Lawyer, you have the option to activate Document Defense^® for your contract, which enables a lawyer to help you demand payment or otherwise enforce your legal rights.

Attached to your Room Rental Agreement, you'll find a checklist of recommended actions you should take to finalize the document. With a membership, you can make edits, print it out, make copies, sign it online with RocketSign^®, and/or save it in PDF format or as a Word file as necessary. Most importantly, you should ensure that everyone gets copies of your fully executed agreement. You might also like to browse our full selection of documents.

The law can change over time and it varies by municipality. If you've got any concerns or questions in connection to property rental laws, connect with a lawyer. It will vary depending on whom you reach out to, but quite often some lawyers will not even agree to review documents that they didn't draft. A better approach to consider is to go through the On Call network. By becoming a Premium member, you can request feedback from an On Call attorney with real estate experience or pose additional legal questions about your Room Rental Agreement. We are here for you.

If you own the property, then you typically can rent it out as desired, as long as you follow local landlord-tenant laws. If you do not own the property and are a tenant looking to sublease, then there are likely more restrictions. In almost every case, you will need your landlord's permission to allow someone else to live in a property. A good place to start is by reading through your current lease agreement to see if there is information about the process required to add a roommate to the lease. If you can't find a copy of your lease, contact your landlord and ask.

It's generally a good idea to stay on positive terms with your property manager and follow all of the proper procedures. If you move someone in without your landlord's approval, it could cause legal issues. Even if your lease does not directly address whether you can sublease, you should still ask and get approval from your property manager first. If you are a landlord and want to provide written permission to your tenant to sublease, you can use our Consent to Sublease document.

As a subtenant, because you didn't sign the original Lease Agreement, in most instances you'll have to contact the original lease holder with any issues you may have about rent or repairs. Unless you have made other arrangements, you will pay your rent to the leaseholder and they will then pay the rent to the landlord. However, in some cases, you can make an agreement with the property manager to be treated as if you were the prime lease holder, and pay rent directly to the landlord or property manager.

If you have questions or concerns related to your subletting arrangement, ask a lawyer.