To find a gay flatmate or LGBTQ+ flatshare in London, search the sites and Facebook groups where LGBTQ+ households advertise, and post your own "room wanted" ad so they can find you too. Then ask your questions by message before you arrange a viewing.
A spare room becomes a lodger with surprisingly little admin. The short list of people to tell and things to write down before they move in.
You can take up to five weeks' rent as a deposit from a lodger, and hold it yourself rather than in a scheme. Give a receipt, record the room's condition, and only deduct for real damage or unpaid rent.
Put the money and the room at the top, describe the household honestly, and be specific. A good advert does your filtering for you.
If you let furnished rooms in your own home, you can receive up to £7,500 a year tax-free under the Rent a Room Scheme. That limit covers everything you receive, for all the rooms together, and it's halved if someone else, such as a joint owner, also receives income from letting in the same home.
If you rent a room in the home you live in, your lodger usually has fewer rights than a tenant, and ending the arrangement is simpler. But that depends on how you share the home, so it's worth getting right before they move in.
Talk to them properly, follow up references, and do the Right to Rent check before anyone moves in. The legal checks are short. Most of the work is deciding whether you'd be glad to come home to this person.
A flatmate viewing goes both ways: you're choosing them as much as they're choosing you. Ask about money, daily routines, guests and how disagreements get handled, and notice how they answer.
Turn things on, look for damp, check the signal in the room itself, ask what the rent really covers, and find out who you'd be paying. Take your time: a proper viewing is worth twenty minutes.
See the room in person before you pay anything. But a viewing only proves the room exists, so check who you're dealing with too.
The average London room is advertised at about £930 a month, and that figure already includes bills. So the real question with any ad is what's included and what isn't.
Take photos the day you move in, keep the paperwork, and if money is held back, challenge it with evidence. Which route you use depends on whether you're a tenant or a lodger.
You're usually a tenant if your landlord doesn't live there and you have a room of your own, a lodger if you share your landlord's home, and a permitted occupier if you live there with the tenant's permission but aren't on the agreement. Each gives you very different rights.