Service Occupancy Agreement

This Service Occupancy Agreement can be used where an employer provides living accommodation to an employee on site so that the employee can carry out their duties under the terms of their employment. This can sometimes be referred to as ‘tied accommodation’.

This template is suitable for use in England only. If your property is in Wales, you will grant an occupation contract.  Model written statements for the occupation contracts can be found in the Renting Homes Wales folder. 

A service occupier is different to a service tenant. A service tenant lives in accommodation provided by their employer, but they don’t need to live there to do their job. If you are providing accommodation to a service tenant in England, then you should use our Assured Shorthold Tenancies (ASTs).

Certain professions may require the employee to live on site, such as a nanny, carer, security and hotel staff or housekeeper.

This agreement can be used where the terms of the employee’s occupancy are to be kept separate from the employment contract (which may be done for administrative reasons) or the existing employment contract does not contain service occupancy provisions. Alternatively, you could use the template EMP.MAN.01 Manager Employment Contract With Accommodation, which includes the terms of the employee’s accommodation.

This agreement creates a licence for the employee to occupy the property for as long as they are employed by the employer. This agreement will terminate automatically when the employment contract ends.

The first page of this document does not form part of the agreement and contains a template clause to insert into the employment contract requiring the employee to live on site so that the employee can perform their duties under the terms of their employment. In order for there to be a service occupancy there must be a strong link between the employee’s occupation of the property and performance of the employee’s duties under the terms of their employment. The employment contract should therefore contain this clause.

This agreement does not provide for the payment of a licence fee. This is because in practice payment would be deducted from the employee’s wages.

Service occupancies are excluded from the requirement for landlords to carry out right to rent checks under the Immigration Act 2014. This is to avoid duplication where employers are required to carry out right to work checks on their employees. If other persons occupy the property with the employee then it would be prudent to carry out right to rent checks on the other occupiers.

The Licence has been updated to include additional licensee covenants in respect of fire safety.

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