"Room To Let' Contract in Flatting Situations...

[Anita]

Ours is centrally located to city/motorways/airport, a huge 2 storey , with Sea Views, 7 double bedroom house with 2 lounges , formal dinning, and 2 sep toilet - bathrooms: 4 bedrooms , sep toilets bathrooms upstairs, and the rest are downstairs.

Due to move in to desirable school zoning, we are moving from ours to a house about 4kms away.

Due to the size of the house, we have been getting many xtended xtended families to rent the house and finally after much thought decided to rent room by room basis at least for 8 months ( until subdevision gets confirmed, since currently our surveyor is working on this, and will be able to then legally chop into 2 dwellings, obviously with lots of other addons like firerating etc etcs.

We have been confirmed, fingers xd it may take for another 8 months or so) . Who would please be able to advise me of a 'Contract' pre made for this.

I currently am working on this and just thought to get 'Tenancy Contract' in place for each room-tenant, and a further appendix detailing 'other' pointers. Bond to be again loaded with Bond Center, as usual. And rent to be paid as an AP.

Since no 'head tenant' in this case, all bills - Ph(will have a tollbar)/pwr/B.band/water edtc will all come to my nane and I will have to devide amongst tenants ( prorata basis - more work I know, I hate this, but for 8 months, I have to compensate, I guess) and keep a copy of the Bill/s in the folder in the lounge for their payment to direct credit to my acct.

There will be space for notes/comments for tenants and landlord to write too, in the same folder, and am thinking,monitoring the kitchen/lounge area at least, and ( endorse this in writing in the contract) , at least kind of every 2-3 weeks on a given day/time, to get a bit of control of this/show my presence, rather to scare them.

Also, I may appoint a bit more responsible type of tenant , later down the track, to 'report' 'admin' out of the 6 tenants( excluding him/her) and may pay her like 5% of 'recovered rents' for the week for her/his contribution.

Still a v subtle point and needing your thoughts/ideas/suggestions/comments to sort this out assp. Some of you may have a contract of this nature and if can e-mail me or so I really appreciate it. For situations like, some wine spills on my wool carpets/window-glass broken due to some bashing or carelessness, unless somebody accepts it, I may have to eat the bullet, I guess.

Any thoughts/ideas folks? My e-mail is anita3smithatyahoodotcom. Will hear from yous with some constructive thoughts/feed back, as much as I can. Much appreciated.

[Glen]

Are you for REAL!!!??? Take a breath and think lady!

[SuperDad]

Anita,

If you are going to rent on a room-by-room basis, I would suggest that you charge an all inclusive fee for room, power, phone, water and the like. This will be much easier than trying to divide the bills between the tenants.

As for a contract, use the standard tenancy agreement provided by the Department of Building and Housing.

Apportioning blame for damage in communal areas in such a property can be difficult. Your best insurance against this is tenant selection

How will firerating between the levels be accomplished with tenants in situ?

Paul.

[Glen]

Wouldn't 7 bedrooms used in this instance, classify this property as a boarding house?

i.e. sprinkler systems, fire escapes, alarms, other certification, etc ?

Would it be worth it for such a short period?

[SuperDad]

Wouldn't 7 bedrooms used in this instance, classify this property as a boarding house?

i.e. sprinkler systems, fire escapes, alarms, other certification, etc ?

Would it be worth it for such a short period?

It depends on the local council regulations.

[Aston]

Wouldn't 7 bedrooms used in this instance, classify this property as a boarding house?

i.e. sprinkler systems, fire escapes, alarms, other certification, etc ?

Would it be worth it for such a short period?

Yes, it will be classified as a boarding house and I would say it will take more than eight months to get the house ready for such use, unless it already has a current Warrant of Fitness.

[payjisan]

Hi Anita, phew, what a read! Righto, you must do as SuperDad suggests and let each room inclusive of power, water, phone, internet and (if you want the house taken care of) a cleaner for the common areas every fortnight.

Also download the tenancy agreement from the Dept of Housing website - http://www.dbh.govt.nz/landlords-getting-started, fill in your landlord details, bank account numbers etc. and photo copy to save time.

You must also create a set of house rules and get each successful tenant to sign. Stick these rules in view on the fridge or laundry.

As for sprinklers and certification, check with the council sure, but for such a short period why bother? Buy a couple of fire extinguishers and install smoke alarms in each room if you havent already.

Also check your insurance policy and ask if the examples you gave will be covered at all.


Good luck~

[rueben]

Just a little tip Anita. It would be easier to read your post if you could put a few paragraphs/line spaces in your text...

To get around the boarding house regulations, why not just rent out 5-6 bedrooms? Would your numbers still add up in this situation? (I actually thought most councils considered 8 bedrooms a boarding house?)

Also another thought was - are you fully furnishing the place? I think most rent by the room tenants prefer a fully furnished place... plus, a clean in the communal areas every fortnight sounds a little "light" to me. Seeing the bathrooms after 7 people had used it for 14 days without cleaning would be a nightmare (I had Motels for 5 years)

[Aston]

As for sprinklers and certification, check with the council sure, but for such a short period why bother? Buy a couple of fire extinguishers and install smoke alarms in each room if you havent already.


Good luck~

VERY VERY bad and irresponsible advice... NEVER do anything illegal.

Do NOT operate as a boarding house if you don't have a current Warrant of Fitness.

Also check your insurance policy and ask if the examples you gave will be covered at all.

This is good advice, but they won't insure you if you don't comply and it doesn't sound as if you will.


Aston.

[payjisan]

Calm down Asty, we dont even know where in the country Anita is yet and they do vary with this regulation. All I am saying is she should check to see what the law says first then decide if it is worth the effort.

However, if the council says that she needs to install a friggin sprinkler system, fire escapes, storm shelter, nuclear bunker etc. then seems like overkill for only 8 months of 'operation'.

If the insurance company is clear on these short term intentions and the policy has it covered, then weigh it all up, do a cost benefit analysis, determine the risk of a council raid and make your decision.

NEVER do anything illegal.

Righto, will do. I mean won't, I mean, yea... good one.

[Anita]

Thank you so much guys and gals. Very informative and helpful hints though, from yous. Thank you again, and I feel, am not alone, and have a supportive, constructive network around me. And I too have been researching, 'what best' in terms of 'admin' point of view, to 'manage' 6 or 7 'room by room' rentals/flatmates situations, for 8 months, from other sources too.

It appears, as couple of yous already suggested, it is more desirable if I could myself be as a part of Tenant/(?Leading Tenant) as well as landlord, to be in the scene, and rent a room by my self ( obviously I can do lots of my admin works while being there,for couple hours a day or so, away from kids/family) thus, to show my presence as a 'control' element since 'individual Tenancies' on room by room basis contract doesn't cover anything to do with 'communal areas' (situations like 'window glasses broken'''/'spill of wines on carpets in the lounge' / 'a hole in the wall in the lounge' etc etc- since no body would raise their hands ) as well as pwer/water are not of any responsiblity of any f'mates, if rented individual rooms, since unable to 'meter' it has to be rolled into the weekly rent rather, I have been told by the T. Services.

Hence, a possible option left, in this case, as far as I could see, is to get myself into 'Lease Back Arrangement' and endorse in 'everybody is opting in to the Residential Tenancies Act 1986' getting signed by all. Thus, if in any dispute with Tenants/'flat sharing' persons are covered by the Tenancies Act. Am still invetigating on this, since still there are grey areas. Anybody out there - could shed some light on this/alrify anthing pertain to this/any experience/any thoughts how best this could be implemented. Much appreciated. Anita