To help me with my mortgage payments. Do l use shorthold tenancy agreements or Licence agreement, Im confused and wanna do this right.

The right thing to do is seek the assistance of home-sharing organizations. These are groups that help homeowners who are having troubles paying the mortgage by looking for renters. They screen these renters thoroughly to make sure that the homeowners will not have any problem.

It is up to you. If u r just looking for some roommates to help u pay the mortgage & bills each month then u do not have to use any sort of lease agreement, however, if u feel better then you'd just use a short lease agreement. Make sure u specify that they must provide u with at least 30 days notice if they r vacating, the day that rent is due & payable, what forms of payment u accept, cash, personal check, money order, cashiers check, ramifications if the check bounces (i.e. bounced check charge, late fee amount) what happens if they fail to pay rent timely (late fees eviction notice) their responsibilities i.e. keeping their bathroom & room clean etc. When l figured out how much l needed in order to survive l took all my bills & cut them in 1/2 & that is the amount l came up with for monthly rent.

The thing is if u have a lease in place & the arrangement does not work out u r kind of stuck, because if u want them out u have to wait until the lease expires or they can sue u & not leave. You could state that the lease is for a period of 6 months & will automatically renew on a month to month basis upon expiration, that way u only have to provide 30 days notice to vacate if on a month to month.

You definately want to make sure that u do a reference check on these people, find out where they were renting prior & call their previous roommate or landlord. Some people r coming out of a break up & got kicked out of the b/f or g/f is apartment & need a place to live (as with some of my roommates) & therefore there is no references to check. You will find that the people u get have bad credit because if they had good credit they'd be renting their own apartment & not having to rent a room so do not be surprised.

There is a website called Roommates.com that u can advertise the rooms for rent, put a description of the type of person u r looking for, ie non smoker, no pets, female only or no preference, u can even post photos of the room & the house etc. That is how l found my roommates. but u will definitely need to specify that they purchase their own food & they r responsible for clearing away their own mess when done with the kitchen, helping out with emptying the dishwasher keeping common areas (kitchen, living room, patio) clean & not leaving their stuff every where etc. Otherwise it will drive u insane. l had a roommate that kept dropping stuff on the floors in the kitchen (red soda, food etc) & every night when l got home from work l had to clean & wash the floors. He said u must really like cleaning the floors u do it every night, l finally said well if u did not make a mess while in here l would not have to.

It is up to u if u want people to sign a lease, but all you'd need is just a basic lease agreement not a license agreement.