There are two answers to this:
- Four, and
- As many as you like
In land law
You can only have four legal owners of a property. As a tenancy is a property (or rather ‘a legal interest in land’) it follows that you can only have four legal tenants.
In landlord and tenant law
However landlord and tenant law is not just land law. It is a mixture of land law and contract law. And there is no maximum number of people who can be a party to a contract.
So how does this work out in practice?
Say six people sign a tenancy agreement. They will all be bound by the contract element – so they will all be liable for the rent and subject to the terms and conditions in the tenancy agreement.
However they will not all be ‘legal tenants’. Only the first four named in the tenancy agreement will be the legal tenants.
However if you have read the legal basics course you will see that joint owners of land (which will include a tenancy as a tenancy is a type of interest in land) own the property jointly for themselves and anyone else under a ‘trust for land’.
So technically the four ‘legal’ tenants will hold the property on trust for themselves and the other signatories of the tenancy agreement.
We tend not to worry about these niceties too much in short lets, but that is the legal explanation for how it ‘works’.
So how many people can be tenants?
In practice it will effectively be everyone who signs the tenancy agreement as they will all be bound by the terms of the tenancy. So it can be as many as you like.
There are rules about overcrowding and landlords who cram too many people into a property will be committing an offence. However this will not invalidate the tenancy.
Related Articles
- Landlords Guide to Water Supply & Your Responsibilities
- All About Boiler Pressure
- How To Save Money On Your Energy Bills
- Landlord’s Guide to Letting Property
- Landlords Obligations – Legionnaires Disease
