Every article about roommate conflict ends the same way: "refer back to your roommate agreement." None of them hand you one. So here is a roommate agreement template you can fill in tonight, broken into clauses and organised around the five mistakes that turn these documents into decoration.
The order matters. The clause that saves you the most money is the one almost nobody writes, so it comes first. And sign whatever you build before the boxes are unpacked. After move-in, every clause you propose reads as an accusation about something that already happened.
Mistake one: treating the lease as your roommate agreement
The lease is an agreement between you and the landlord. It says nothing about what happens between the two of you, and the one clause it does contain about shared responsibility (joint and several liability) works against you: if your roommate stops paying, the landlord can pursue you for the entire rent, not your half.
Here is what that looks like. Rent is $2,400. Say Sam takes a job in another city in month seven of a twelve-month lease, says "I'll find someone to take my room, don't worry about it," posts once in a Facebook housing group, and gradually stops answering texts. On the 1st, the full $2,400 is due. The landlord has no interest whatsoever in your arrangement with Sam. If you can't cover it, the missed payment attaches to every name on that lease, including yours, and follows you into your next tenant screening.
The reason nobody writes this clause is that leases look official and long, you both signed one, and it feels covered. Raising "what if you leave early" in week one feels like calling your friend a flight risk before you've hung a single picture.
Write the exit terms first anyway. Four things need numbers: the notice period, who finds the replacement, what money changes hands, and what happens to the deposit.
The deposit is the part people get wrong. Your security deposit does not get partially refunded when one person moves out. In California, Civil Code § 1950.5 gives a landlord 21 days after the tenancy ends to return it, and the tenancy hasn't ended. So the departing roommate gets their share from the incoming roommate, in cash, on the day the new name goes on the lease. Not from you. Not from the landlord.
Clause 1. Ending or transferring a room
Either of us may leave before the lease ends by giving ______ days' written notice (60 is the number that actually works; 30 leaves no time to screen anyone).
The departing roommate is responsible for finding a replacement and for rent until the replacement's name is on the lease. The remaining roommate has the right to refuse a candidate, and will not refuse without a specific reason given in writing within 72 hours of meeting them.
If no replacement is found by the departure date, the departing roommate pays $______ per month (their full share) until a replacement is on the lease or the lease ends, whichever comes first.
The incoming roommate pays the departing roommate their deposit share of $______ directly, on the day the lease is amended. The landlord's deposit stays untouched.
Move-out condition: the departing roommate's room is cleaned, holes filled, and photographed on the day they leave. Photos go to both of us.
Signed and dated, this is a contract between the two of you, and small claims court will read it. California raised its small claims limit for individuals to $12,500 in January 2024, which covers most roommate money disputes. A document with two signatures beats a screenshot of a text thread, every time.
Mistake two: splitting rent 50/50 when the rooms aren't equal
An even split is only fair when the rooms are even, and they almost never are. The bedroom with the private bath, the closet and two real windows is worth more than the interior box, and the person in the box will know it by month two.
Say it's a two-bedroom at $2,400. Room A is 180 square feet with an ensuite bath. Room B is 110 square feet with one window facing an airshaft. An even split puts both people at $1,200. A weighted split lands nearer $1,380 and $1,020, and the person in Room B stops doing quiet arithmetic every time they walk past your bathroom.
The cleanest method: each of you writes down privately, before any discussion, the maximum you'd pay for each room, with your two numbers adding up to the total rent. Then compare sheets. If you bid higher on the room you want than they did, you take it and pay the average of the two bids for that room. It takes four minutes and removes the negotiation entirely. (The New York Times published a rent-division calculator in 2014, "To Divide the Rent, Start With a Triangle," built on Francis Su's envy-free division method. Same principle, more mathematics.)
Utilities need the same treatment. "We'll split utilities" collapses the first time someone says "I was in Chicago for three weeks, I'm not paying for your air conditioning." Write down which account is in whose name, the rough monthly amount, the split, and the day the transfer happens.
Clause 2. Rent, utilities and household supplies
Total monthly rent: $______, due to the landlord on the ______ of each month.
Room A (______) pays $______. Room B (______) pays $______.
| Account |
In whose name |
Typical monthly |
Split |
Paid by |
| Electricity |
______ |
$______ |
______ |
______ of the month |
| Gas |
______ |
$______ |
______ |
______ of the month |
| Internet |
______ |
$______ |
______ |
______ of the month |
| Water / trash |
______ |
$______ |
______ |
______ of the month |
Whoever holds an account sends a screenshot of the bill within 2 days of receiving it. The other person transfers within ______ days of the screenshot.
If either of us is away for 15 or more consecutive nights, that month's variable utilities (electricity, gas, water) split ______ instead.
Household supplies: we each put $______ per month into a shared account or card, used only for toilet paper, paper towels, dish soap, sponges, trash bags, cleaning products and light bulbs.
That last line is worth more than it looks. Rotating who buys the toilet paper always fails, because the person who notices the empty roll first ends up buying it forever and quietly resenting it. A shared $30 or $40 a month kills the whole category of argument.
Whatever numbers you land on, get them into a single document with both signatures rather than four different text threads. A tool like Servanda walks two people through writing the terms down and agreeing to them in one place, which matters most for the clauses you'd rather not say out loud face to face.
Mistake three: writing rules about attitude instead of numbers
"Be respectful of shared space" is not a rule, it's a mood. Guest and noise clauses only work when they contain numbers you could check against a calendar, because the entire point is to let you raise something before you're angry.
The classic failure is a partner. "He's not living here, his AC is broken." Four nights a week for a month is living here: another shower in the morning queue, another person in the kitchen at 8am, a noticeably larger electricity bill. Nobody wrote a number, so the conversation only happens once one of you is already furious, and by then it lands as a judgement about the relationship rather than a request about the apartment.
Check the lease too. Many residential leases cap a guest at 14 consecutive days before written landlord consent is required, and exceeding it puts the leaseholders at risk, not the guest. In New York, Real Property Law § 235-f (the Roommate Law) gives a tenant the right to share their apartment with one additional occupant and that occupant's dependent children. That is a right against your landlord. It is not a bypass of the deal you made with the person paying half the rent.
Clause 3. Guests, quiet hours and shared space
Overnight guests: up to 3 consecutive nights and 10 nights per month, no permission needed. Beyond that, ask at least 48 hours ahead. Either of us can say no to a specific stay and doesn't have to justify it beyond "not this week."
Any one guest staying more than 8 nights in a calendar month contributes $______ toward that month's utilities.
Nobody sleeps in the living room more than 2 nights in a row.
Quiet hours: 11pm to 7am Sunday through Thursday, 1am to 9am Friday and Saturday. Quiet means no speaker audio, no vacuum, no washing machine, no phone or video calls in shared rooms. Headphones are fine.
Parties or gatherings over 6 people need 1 week's notice and agreement from both of us.
Common areas are cleared of personal items by ______ each night. Bedrooms are private: neither of us enters the other's room without being asked, including to retrieve our own things.
The guest number is the one people flinch at writing. Write it anyway. "Ten nights a month" is a normal thing to have agreed on in advance and an unbearable thing to propose in month five while someone's partner is asleep in the next room.
Mistake four: a chore chart with no consequence attached
Chore charts fail in week five, reliably, because they say who and never say by when, to what standard, or what happens when it doesn't happen. A rule with no consequence is a preference, and preferences get overridden by whoever cares least about mess.
Start by defining done. "Kitchen clean" means counters wiped, sink empty, drying rack cleared, nothing left on the stove. Write that sentence out, because two people can have completely honest, completely different definitions of a clean kitchen and argue about it for a year without ever discovering that.
Then take a position on structure: standing zones beat weekly rotation. Rotation asks both of you to remember whose week it is, and the moment one person loses track, the system is over. Zones ask nobody to remember anything. You own the bathroom, they own the kitchen, and you swap every three months if either of you gets sick of it.
Clause 4. Cleaning
Standing zones, swapped every 3 months:
- ______ owns: kitchen (counters, stovetop, sink, floor, fridge purge)
- ______ owns: bathroom (toilet, shower, sink, mirror, floor)
- Shared, alternating weeks: living room floor and surfaces, trash and recycling out to the curb, hallway
Weekly deadline: Sunday 8pm.
Daily rules that override everything: no dishes sit in the sink overnight, and whoever fills the bin takes it out. "It isn't full" means the lid closes without pressure.
If a zone isn't done by the deadline, the person responsible puts $25 into the household supplies fund. Twice in one month and we book a cleaner with that fund and both of us stop discussing it.
That $25 is doing real work. Without it, the conversation is "I was going to do it tonight," and you're left choosing between letting it go and being the person who nags. With it, it's Sunday at 8pm, so it's $25, and neither of you has to have a personality about it.
Mistake five: signing the roommate agreement and never opening it again
A roommate agreement template filled in during move-in week describes a household that has stopped existing by month four. Someone got a dog. Someone started working nights. Someone's partner is now around five days a week and has opinions about the kitchen.
The failure mode is specific: the document goes into a drawer, and the only time it comes out is mid-argument, as evidence. Somebody reads a clause aloud to prove they were right in March. That's the last time either of you ever looks at it, because now it's a weapon rather than a tool.
Prevent that with a schedule and an amendment rule. A review on the calendar means changes get proposed in a neutral moment instead of during a fight, and it gives both of you a place to put small irritations that aren't worth a confrontation but are absolutely worth a sentence.
Clause 5. Review, amendment and disputes
We review this agreement 30 days after move-in and then every 3 months. Twenty minutes, three questions: what in here is wrong now, what's happening that isn't written down, what do we each want changed.
Any change must be written into this document, dated, and signed by both of us. Verbal agreements don't amend it.
If we disagree and one conversation doesn't resolve it, each of us writes one paragraph saying what we want and why, and we trade them before talking again. If that fails, we bring in a neutral third party (a mediator or a mutual friend neither of us is dating) before either of us contacts the landlord.
Signed: __ Date: ______
Signed: __ Date: ______
Do the calendar part now, before you print anything. Open both phones, set a recurring event 30 days out, call it "house check-in, 20 min," and let it repeat quarterly. The clause is worthless if the first review depends on one of you remembering it exists.
