03/09/2026
Posted by Baruch Solomon
HOW SECURE SHOULD A LODGER BE IN SOMEONE ELSE'S HOME?
On a November morning in 2019, I woke to the sound of my landlord and his wife working my key out of the lock from the other side of the door. Moments later, they burst into my room and ordered me to leave.
For several weeks, they had periodically cut off my electricity, falsely claiming there was an electrical fault in the house.
And in the early hours of the previous morning, I was sitting quietly at my laptop, searching for somewhere else to live, when my landlady pounded furiously on my door. When I answered, she accused me of making a racket.
The thing is I'd done nothing wrong; well nothing serious anyway. And if things weren't working out between us, we could have come to a mutually respectful agreement to part company. I certainly didn't deserve that kind of humiliation and ill treatment.
That's what makes being a lodger so insecure. Your host can simply decide they don't like you living there any more. And when the person providing the roof over your head is also sharing it with you, they have enormous power over your day-to-day life.
Yes, I called the police, but there was only so much they were able or willing to do. To be honest, by that stage I just wanted to get away from a highly toxic situation.
Nowadays I'm a tenant and my situation is very different. Tenants have much stronger legal protections against harassment and eviction.
But how do we give lodgers more security while recognising the host's position too?
Camden has an acute shortage of affordable accommodation. Rooms and studios in people's homes are an important part of the housing supply, and we need people with spare rooms to feel confident about letting them.
Taking in lodgers isn't risk free. You could end up with the lodger from hell: someone who doesn't pay the rent, brings strangers home at all hours, causes damage or makes you fear for your safety.
Or maybe nobody has done anything wrong; you simply don't get on. If you're sharing your home with someone, you need to be able to decide it isn't working and ask them to leave without facing the potentially lengthy process involved in evicting a tenant.
But could there be a middle ground between that and a lodger being totally at the mercy of the person they share a roof with?
One idea put forward by Camden Federation of Private Tenants is a council backed Lodger Best Practice Scheme.
Hosts and lodgers who sign up would agree to some basic standards: a written agreement, reasonable notice periods, clear arrangements for deposits and and guidelines for when things go wrong.
Councils and public bodies could support this by offering model agreements, access to tenancy deposit schemes, access to mediation and arbitration services and in worst case scenarios, a direct route to homelessness prevention services.
This wouldn't turn lodgers into tenants or trap people into sharing their home with somebody who makes their life unbearable.
But taking a lodger into your home shouldn't mean having an entirely free hand over somebody else's life.
Could a voluntary council-run scheme give lodgers some basic security while still encouraging people to open their homes to them?
I'd particularly like to hear from lodgers and former lodgers, as well as people who have taken lodgers in, about what would make a scheme like this workable.
