Co-housing: managing multiple tenants in one property

Manage each room as its own unit with its own lease. A property with six residents is then six units under one address, each with its own rent, its own deposit, its own start and end date and its own payment tracking. When one resident changes, one lease ends and one starts, and the other five notice nothing. That is also the setup the Flemish Residential Lease Decree supports most clearly: each tenant is liable only for their own rent and deposit.

One lease for all residents

If you put all residents on one lease, they are as a rule jointly and severally liable for the full rent, and the decree governs how a co-tenant can leave and be replaced. That is simpler on paper but heavier to follow up: one resident’s payment is not separate from the others’, and the deposit is shared. For shared spaces and costs, each contract should state what is included in the rent and what is charged separately.

Where UnitDesk helps

In UnitDesk you create the property with one unit per room. Each lease carries its expected rent, imported bank transactions are matched per lease, and the overview shows per room who has paid, who has paid partially and who is behind. Availability is derived from the leases, so you see at once which room is free or coming free, and each resident’s move-in and move-out dates sit together on their lease. If several tenants share one contract, you add them as parties on that same lease.