TV licence

[rayJchadwick]

My son has moved into rented accomodation near his Uni, he is sharing with 3 other students. He has a tv licence but do the others need one each or does his cover the household? They each have their own room and own tv's.

[banana]

As far as I recall, the rules are that if each occupied room has a lock then that makes it a separate dwelling for the purposes of licensing -so one license per room. If the rooms do not have locks then the whole house is the dwelling and so would need only 1 license .

[snapdharlich]

It should cover them all in the household although dogooders will probably tell you it's unethical and they should get one each. How many licences do you normally have in one house - One - There's your answer.

[stoo_pid]

Unless the rules have changed in recent years, banana is correct. It's worth noting BTW that it doesn't matter whether or not you actually use the locks.  On a practical note though, as long as a licence exists for the address, it is unlikely that the licence people would investigate further.

[kempie]

If there is 1 television in a common room = 1 licence

Separate TVs in separate rooms (covered by a tenency agreement) = separate licences

http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/information/students.jsp

[Piper-AK]

When I was at uni we didn't bother getting licences as we all thought our TVs were covered by our parents' licences back at our (non uni) homes.  Were we just kidding ourselves, or have the rules changed? (This was back in 1991)

[chazza]

We went throught this at uni in the late 90s.  Kempie and Banana are correct, we got round the problem by keeping a TV in the living room. 

 

As for snapdharlich's answer,  i know that neighbours of ours were fined for only having one to cover bedrooms under separate tenancy agreements in the one house!

[BetsyLou]

In my experience of shared houses, a joint tenancy is definitely the norm, which means you only need one TV licence. You can have locks on your rooms in this case, also (as you would be able to in a family house, for example). Your son just needs to check his tenancy agreement - and get his flatmates to cough up some money for their shares of the licence! :)

[chazza]

Quoted from    http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/information/students.jsp#link4 

 

If you are going to be sharing a house, a separate tenancy agreement would normally mean your room is classified a separately occupied place. In this case, if you have a TV in your room, you will need your own TV Licence.

However, if there is only one TV in a communal area, then only one TV Licence is required. Similarly, if your house can be treated as one place shared by all, then only one TV Licence is required - a joint tenancy agreement would normally indicate that there is only one separately occupied place.

[chazza]

Sorry to follow on from my answer, i lived in 3 different student houses and we always had separate tenancy agreements - i believe this is the norm for student accommodation

[undercovers]

only need one license for a shared house

[ramesh046]

This has been missed out by Piper
If you are in a say Uni, and you have a laptop you are covered by your parents licence AS LOng As you DO NOT use Mains but Batteries on your Laptop. Please refer to TV licence website