Documents for Business

In excess of 1,000 customisable documents covering every conceivable business issue.

Introduction to this document

Service occupancy

You’re about to recruit a new employee.
As part of the package, you want to throw in some accommodation. Use our form of agreement to do this correctly.

Advice

Having offered accommodation with the job, you want the ability to ensure that the employee leaves with the minimum of fuss. To achieve this, you must create a licence as opposed to a tenancy, i.e. when their contract of employment ends, their licence ends at the same time. The only way that this can be done is by ensuring that the supply of accommodation is solely to enable the employee to better perform their duties, i.e. they need to live at the premises in order to carry out their job for you. If it’s a perk, then it’s not going to be a licence. It will, instead, be an assured shorthold tenancy, which means that you’ll need to rely upon one or more of the various grounds available, e.g. rent arrears, in order to get them evicted.

Tip

Before offering accommodation, think about what your employee’s duties are going to be. Look at their job description and contract of employment. Ask yourself the question; do they really need to live here in order to do the job? If the answer is no, then make them an assured shorthold tenant instead.

An inventory

If you’re providing furniture and fixtures and fittings, it’s always sensible to have an inventory drawn up specifying what’s at the property and what sort of condition it’s in. Once this is done, make sure that both you and the employee sign it.

Cheerio

If you and your employee part company and you’ve correctly granted them a licence because they needed the accommodation as it was connected with their duties, then there’s no need to serve any notice; their licence will end when the notice period under their contract ends. After that, if they still refuse to budge, they’re a trespasser. Nonetheless, although reasonable force can be used to evict them, it’s probably more sensible to apply to the court for an eviction order.