Roommate Agreements
Contents
Sandhills Real Estate, the Bronx company Richard Joseph Spinelli cofounded, leases Belmont apartments and townhouses to Fordham students who live in them together, and any shared home of that kind raises questions the lease never answers. A lease tells a landlord what a household owes; it says almost nothing about who buys the dish soap. A roommate agreement is the written answer. It is a short document that the residents sign among themselves, with no landlord as a party, setting out how they will split the charges and share the space.
Many universities publish a template. West Chester University of Pennsylvania offers one for students living off campus, last updated in the fall of 2023, and its sections follow the order in which a household tends to need them.1 This entry walks through that template section by section, adding guidance from other campuses and, at the end, the New York rule that bears on who may live in a shared apartment.
Names, dates and contacts
The West Chester form opens with the basics: the names of everyone living in the property, the owner’s name, phone number and email, a separate number for emergency maintenance, and the start and end dates of the lease.1 None of this is contentious, which is the point. Writing it down on the first day means no one has to hunt for the owner’s number when a pipe bursts at night, and everyone has agreed on when the household ends.
Northeastern University suggests that the conversation start even earlier, while roommates are still choosing one another. Its questions for a potential roommate include when the group needs an apartment and whether it would ever sublet a room.2 A household that expects to sublet over the summer can record the plan here and read the summer sublets entry for the New York procedure.
Shares and who collects them
The same opening section then records the monthly sum each roommate contributes and the calendar day it must arrive, and then offers two options. Either each roommate pays the owner separately and keeps a personal receipt, or one roommate serves as the tenant bookkeeper, collects everyone’s payments by an agreed number of days before the due date, and sends the owner a single payment for the whole amount.1
The choice matters because of how shared leases work. On a lease with a joint and several clause, George Washington University explains, each signer owes the full amount, whatever split the roommates agreed among themselves, and it is up to the other tenants, not the landlord, to collect from anyone who falls short.3 The same office notes that landlords often keep the entire security deposit until every original signer has moved out, which leaves the roommates to decide for themselves how each person’s portion is refunded.3 This clause is the natural place to write that down.
Communication
The first full section after the basics asks how the household will talk about problems. Which channel will roommates use when a challenge comes up, how soon after a problem should it be raised, where will the group meet to discuss it, how does each person want to be approached, and who will speak with the property owner?1 Northeastern asks a parallel question: what check ins does the group need, and how will it hold itself to its shared duties?2 Fewer households start as strangers than the old image suggests: a March 2026 Commercial Observer column called the randomly assigned freshman roommate a fading picture of college living.8
Guests
The guest section is the longest on the form. It asks how roommates will get permission before inviting someone, what happens when one person is uncomfortable with a visit, whether an absent roommate’s bed can be used by a guest, how many guests may be over at once, and which personal items and appliances guests may use.1 Northeastern adds questions about significant others and overnight visitors: what hours they can come over, how long they can stay, and whether the others should be told in advance.2
Cleaning and shared purchases
West Chester asks the household to list cleaning tasks, set how often each is done, and settle the fate of dishes in the sink, including whether they are washed individually or by some other system.1 A companion section covers property: what the group will buy together and share, which items one person bought that everyone may use, and how shared things should be treated and put away.1 Northeastern raises the same points in terms of money, asking who will own furniture after move out and how common items such as soap and toilet paper will be handled.2
Quiet hours and daily life
The last topical section of the template sets times on weeknights and on weekends when roommates agree to quieter activity, followed by a blank space for any other expectations and a line for each roommate’s signature.1 Northeastern’s list reaches a little further, into sleep schedules, health needs such as food allergies or asthma, pets, and which substances, if any, the household and its lease allow.2
What the agreement can and cannot do
People often ask whether a roommate agreement is binding. The Tenant Resource Center in Madison, Wisconsin, gives a practical answer. A landlord has no duty to police one. Yet housemates can pursue each other, and a signed note of each person’s obligations, or records that pin a loss on the person behind it, strengthens that claim considerably; in its own state the center points such disputes to small claims court.4 The center recommends drafting it while relations are still friendly, with each person’s payments and chores spelled out, and it urges a cosigner or guarantor to ask for one that spells out which tenant obligations that cosigner is backing.4
When the document is not enough, outside help exists. Northeastern’s student conduct office offers roommates an impartial mediator, or consultations so they can manage hard conversations on their own.2
New York’s roommate law
New York adds a rule that no private agreement can override. According to the state Attorney General’s guide to tenants’ rights, Real Property Law section 235 f makes it unlawful for a landlord to limit an apartment to the tenant named on the lease and that tenant’s immediate family.5 When a lease names one tenant, that tenant may share the apartment with immediate family, one additional occupant and that occupant’s dependent children, provided the tenant or the tenant’s spouse lives there as a primary residence. When a lease names more than one tenant, the named tenants may share with immediate family, and if one named tenant moves out, that person may be replaced by another occupant and the occupant’s dependent children.5
The same guide lists the duties that come with the right. The tenant must tell the landlord the name of any occupant within 30 days of the occupant moving in, or within 30 days of the landlord asking. If the named tenant moves out, the remaining occupant has no right to stay without the landlord’s express consent. A landlord may also cap the total number of people in an apartment to meet overcrowding standards.5 For a student household, the practical lesson is that the roommate agreement governs life inside the apartment, whereas the lease, together with the state rule, settles who may be there at all. The wider setting for these households is described under student housing.
The agreement can also assign the job of recording the unit’s condition. The Daily Gamecock reported in September 2026 that two roommates at one Columbia, South Carolina complex photographed stains, mold and insects in their unit on move in day.7 Such a record has a later use in New York: City Limits reported in July 2025 on a web tool that asks a departing tenant a series of questions and drafts a demand letter, pictures attached, when an owner holds back a deposit.6
