Renting a room or sharing a flat: how to agree
Sharing a home with one or two others is a way to save, especially in central Yerevan. But you share more than the rent — the bills, the kitchen and the responsibility too. Here is how to set it up fairly.
Contents
A room or a shared flat: the difference
There are two main arrangements. The first is renting a room — from an owner who lives in the apartment or lets it room by room. The second is renting a whole apartment with one or two others and splitting the costs. Day to day they look alike, but legally they are different situations, and your choice determines who is responsible for what.
Whose name is on the lease
- Everyone is a tenant. Each person deals directly with the owner. It is transparent, but if one moves out the contract has to be changed.
- One tenant, the other lives with them. Under Armenia’s Civil Code, the tenant is answerable to the landlord for the actions of people living with them permanently (Article 668).
- One rents the apartment and lets a room to the other. That is a sublease: it requires the landlord’s consent, the subtenant gets no independent right to use the home, and if the main lease ends early, the sublease ends too (Article 673).
The calmest option for everyone is when the contract or an annex lists every adult who will live in the apartment and the owner knows about each of them.
If one flatmate leaves, the law allows the tenant to be replaced, with the landlord’s consent, by one of the adults living with them permanently (Article 674). If the lease is ended altogether, the tenant and everyone living with them permanently do so by mutual agreement, with three months’ written notice to the landlord (Article 675).
What to agree between yourselves
- how the rent is split: equally or by room size
- how utilities and internet are split, who pays the owner and on what day
- who contributed how much to the deposit and how it is split if one person leaves early
- cleaning: a rota or a shared cleaner
- guests and overnight stays: how often and whether with notice
- quiet hours, smoking, pets
- what happens if one of you decides to move out: notice period and finding a replacement
Shared money without resentment
The most common source of friction is utilities. It helps to have one person pay the bills and post the receipts in a shared chat once a month. Discuss big purchases for the flat in advance and decide straight away who keeps them if you part ways.
If one of you transfers the rent to the owner, the other should send their share before payment day, not after. That way nobody ends up as a lender, and the owner gets paid on time.
Guests follow the same rule as money: agree in advance. The law allows the tenant and those living with them permanently, by mutual consent, to let temporary residents stay free of charge, but it is the tenant who answers for them to the owner (Article 669). So “a friend will stay for a couple of weeks” is a decision for everyone who lives there.
If you rent a room from the owner
- Clarify which spaces are shared: kitchen, bathroom, balcony
- Ask whether the room door has a lock and who else lives in the apartment
- Agree on access to the washing machine and fridge
- Check that the person letting it really is the owner — with a Cadastre extract, just as when renting a whole flat
- Discuss whether you can invite guests and at what times
Key takeaways
- Decide whose names go on the lease: both tenants, one tenant, or a sublease.
- A sublease needs the owner’s consent and ends with the main lease.
- Agree on money, cleaning, guests and moving out — and write it down.
- One person pays the utilities; everyone sees the receipts.
- Rent a room, like a flat, only from a verified owner.
