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Two houses can both be HMOs, both meet the same licensing rules, and still have completely different tenancy paperwork.
One landlord might put every sharer on a single joint agreement. Another might give each tenant their own agreement for an individual room. Both approaches can work, but the choice affects who is responsible for the rent, what happens when somebody wants to leave, how rent increases are handled and even who may be liable for council tax.
Since the Renters’ Rights Act reforms came into force on 1 May 2026, there is another layer to think about too. Assured tenancies are now periodic from the outset, and landlords have new written-information requirements to follow.
Jurisdiction note: This guide covers privately rented HMOs in England where the occupiers hold assured tenancies. Different rules can apply to resident-landlord arrangements, company lets and accommodation outside England.
What is an HMO tenancy agreement?
An HMO tenancy agreement is not a separate legal category of tenancy. It is simply a tenancy agreement used for accommodation within a house in multiple occupation, with terms that reflect the realities of shared living.
That may mean dealing with use of common areas, shared facilities, cleaning responsibilities and, where relevant, which household bills are included in the rent.
Since 1 May 2026, landlords in England can no longer create assured shorthold tenancies (ASTs). Assured tenancies are periodic from the outset rather than having a fixed end date.
If you want the broader principles before getting into the HMO-specific details, our guide to creating a reliable tenancy agreement covers the basics.
For most HMO landlords, the first practical decision is whether everyone will rent the property together or whether each person will rent their room separately.
Should you use a joint tenancy or individual room agreements?
Both arrangements are common, but they create very different landlord-and-tenant relationships.
How a joint tenancy works for an HMO
With a joint tenancy, all the tenants are parties to the same agreement and are normally jointly and severally liable for the rent.
In plain English, that means each tenant can be responsible for the full amount, not simply their own informal share.
If four friends jointly rent an HMO for £2,000 a month and one stops contributing, the landlord is not limited to pursuing that tenant for £500. The tenants have jointly agreed to pay the £2,000 rent.
Joint tenancies can be simpler to administer because there is one tenancy, one rent liability and one set of contractual terms. They often make sense where a group already knows one another and intends to rent the whole property together.
There is an important trade-off, however. Because everyone is part of the same periodic tenancy, one joint tenant will usually be able to serve notice that ends the tenancy for the whole group.
Naming one person as a “lead tenant” for everyday communication does not change that legal position. All the joint tenants remain parties to the tenancy.
How individual room agreements work
With individual agreements, each person rents their own room under a separate tenancy and usually has shared rights to use the common parts of the property.
Each tenant is responsible for their own rent. If one person leaves or falls into arrears, the other tenants’ agreements continue independently.
That can make vacancies easier to manage. You can replace one occupier without having to create an entirely new agreement for everyone else.
The trade-off is more administration. Each room tenancy is a separate legal agreement, with its own written terms, rent, deposit arrangements where applicable and tenancy records.
Letting rooms separately can also bring a property within the HMO rules, so check whether mandatory or additional licensing applies before setting up the tenancies. Our guide to HMO licensing and other requirements covers those rules separately.
What must your HMO tenancy agreement include since the Renters’ Rights Act?
From 1 May 2026, landlords creating a new assured tenancy in England must give tenants prescribed written information about the key terms before the tenancy is agreed.
This can be included within the tenancy agreement itself or supplied separately.
The required information covers matters including the landlord and tenant details, the property, rent and payment arrangements, the tenancy’s periodic nature and other prescribed rights and responsibilities.
For a joint tenancy, the written terms relate to that single tenancy and should identify all the joint tenants.
If the HMO is let room by room, each occupier has their own legal tenancy, so each agreement needs its own written terms and information.
There is an important distinction here with the Renters’ Rights Act Information Sheet 2026. That document was mainly introduced for existing written assured tenancies that were already in place before 1 May 2026. Most landlords had to provide it by 31 May 2026.
It is not the standard onboarding document for a new HMO tenancy being created now. New tenancies instead follow the prescribed written-information rules.
Bills-inclusive arrangements are particularly common in HMOs, so the agreement should also make clear which bills are included in the rent and which, if any, the tenant must pay separately.
You may also want clear terms covering use of common areas, cleaning arrangements, noise and other shared-house responsibilities. These are not a substitute for your legal duties, but clear expectations can help prevent avoidable disputes later.
How does notice to quit work if you have a joint tenancy?
A joint periodic tenancy creates an important consequence when somebody wants to leave.
One joint tenant can usually give valid notice that brings the whole joint tenancy to an end, even if the other tenants would prefer to stay.
That does not necessarily mean everyone has to leave permanently. If some tenants want to remain, you can agree a new tenancy with them once the existing joint tenancy ends. In some circumstances, the parties may instead agree another arrangement, such as adding or replacing tenants.
But the key point is that one tenant cannot normally use notice to end only “their share” of an existing joint tenancy.
Individual room agreements work differently. One tenant can end their own tenancy without automatically affecting the agreements held by the other occupiers.
If you’re weighing up joint and room-by-room agreements, this is one of the most important practical differences to understand.
You can read more about the wider rules in our guide to periodic tenancies under the Renters’ Rights reforms.
What is Ground 4A, and how does it affect your tenancy agreement for a student HMO?
Student HMOs need some extra planning because the Renters’ Rights Act abolished fixed-term assured tenancies and Section 21.
Ground 4A was introduced to give qualifying student HMO landlords a route to regain possession around the end of the academic year so the property can be re-let to another student group.
For a joint student tenancy, the conditions include:
- the tenants must be full-time students when the tenancy is entered into, or reasonably expected to become full-time students
- the property must be an HMO, or form part of one
- you must intend to re-let the property to full-time students
- the tenancy must be agreed less than six months before the tenants can move in
- tenants must receive written notice before the tenancy is agreed that Ground 4A may be used
- when possession is later sought, at least four months’ notice must be given
- the possession date must fall between 1 June and 30 September.
Where rooms are let under separate individual tenancies, the student test is applied to the particular tenancy rather than automatically requiring every occupier elsewhere in the HMO to be part of the same agreement.
The advance Ground 4A notice is particularly important. It can form part of the tenancy paperwork, but it does not have to be written as a clause inside the tenancy agreement itself.
What matters is that the tenant receives the required written notice before entering into the tenancy.
You cannot simply add it later when the academic year is coming to an end. If that initial requirement was not met, Ground 4A will not be available for that tenancy.
For landlords who regularly let to students, the sensible approach is to build the Ground 4A notice into the standard pre-tenancy process so it is not overlooked.
How does your tenancy structure affect council tax?
The way an HMO is let can also affect council tax liability, although the council-tax definition of an HMO is not identical to the HMO definition used for housing licensing.
Broadly, where tenants rent individual rooms and only have rights to shared communal areas, the landlord will commonly be liable for council tax.
Where a group rents the whole property together under one joint tenancy, the resident tenants will generally sit higher in the normal council tax hierarchy and may instead be liable.
There are exceptions, so do not choose your tenancy structure on this distinction alone.
Our guide to who pays council tax on an HMO explains the rules in more detail.
What about rent increases in a shared HMO?
The tenancy structure also affects how rent increases are administered.
Since 1 May 2026, private landlords increasing the rent under an assured periodic tenancy must use Form 4A and give at least two months’ notice.
Rent cannot normally be increased during the first year of a tenancy, and after that it can only be increased once in any 12-month period using the statutory process.
With a joint tenancy, there is one contractual rent for the tenancy, so the rent-increase process applies to that joint tenancy as a whole.
With individual room agreements, each room tenancy has its own rent and its own annual cycle. In a house where tenants moved in at different times, that can mean rent reviews become staggered across the year.
Tenants can also challenge a proposed increase at the First-tier Tribunal if they believe it exceeds the open market rent.
Your HMO tenancy agreement checklist
- Decide whether the property will use a joint tenancy or separate room agreements, and understand the consequences of each.
- Give the prescribed written tenancy information before agreeing any new assured tenancy.
- Make bills-inclusive arrangements clear, including exactly what the rent covers.
- Protect any tenancy deposit correctly and provide the required deposit information.
- Check whether mandatory or additional HMO licensing applies.
- For qualifying student HMOs, give the Ground 4A advance notice before the tenancy is agreed.
- Keep track of each tenancy’s rent-increase cycle, particularly where rooms are let individually.
- Make sure the agreement accurately reflects how the property will actually be occupied and managed.
Missing required tenancy information is not just an administrative inconvenience. Councils have enforcement powers under the Renters’ Rights Act, while failures around deposits, licensing and possession notices can create separate problems of their own.
Structure first, paperwork second
The tenancy structure you choose affects much more than the wording of the agreement. It determines who owes the rent, what happens when somebody leaves, how rent increases are handled and, in some cases, who may be responsible for council tax.
Decide first how you genuinely intend to manage the property, then make sure the paperwork reflects that arrangement.
For a single HMO, keeping track of those differences may be straightforward. Across a larger portfolio with a mixture of joint tenancies and individual room lets, the challenge is remembering which documents, notices, rent dates and compliance requirements belong to which tenancy.
That is where having a reliable system becomes far more useful than relying on memory or an increasingly complicated spreadsheet.
