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Living in shared accommodation

Sharing rented accommodation with friends or fellow students or workers is a good way to keep your rent and other bills down.

Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs)

They are considered to be HMOs if three or more tenants who are not all members of the same family live there as their principal residence (for example, students living in shared accommodation during term time or people who have come from other countries to live and work in Northern Ireland). This means that the definition of HMOs includes, flatlets, bedsits, shared houses, lodgings, hostels and self contained flats.

HMOs need high safety standards as there are greater risks involved. For example, people frequently lock their rooms in shared accommodation, so there may be an increased risk of fire.

To ensure that properties meet safety standards, landlords may need to register those that are rented out to multiple occupants. However, not all such properties need to be registered. Please check the attached link to see if your property needs to be registered:

Some places, where there are a lot of HMOs, particularly near the universities, are identified as Action Areas. If your HMO is in such an area, then it must be registered.

More information can be found in the link below:

Student accommodation

The Housing Executive recommends that students and their parents try to find registered accommodation as a first preference.

More information can be found by contacting studentpadni, the online student accommodation service for Northern Ireland, using the link below:

You can also find information on student accomodation through the following links:

Housing information in other languages

You can find out more about the housing rights of EEA nationals in Northern Ireland by visting the Housing Advice website:

The site is available in English, Polish, Lithuanian, Slovak, Russian and Portuguese. You can learn more about renting privately, homelessness, sharing a home, paying for your accommodation and other issues that affect migrant workers:

More useful links