How to Vet a Roommate Before You Sign a Lease (Without Making It Weird)

You will check a flat for damp and a landlord for ownership. The person you are about to share a bathroom, a fridge and a joint lease with usually gets one coffee and a good feeling. Here is a vetting process that takes about an hour, does not feel like an interrogation, and catches the two things that actually go wrong: people who cannot pay, and people who will not leave.

Before you meet: the profile

A serious person has a profile that answers the basics without being asked: what they do, roughly what hours they keep, their budget, when they want to move and for how long. A profile with one blurry photo and "looking for a room, message me" is not a scam, but it tells you the person has not thought about it, and you will be doing the thinking for both of you.

Look for consistency. Does the budget match the job? Does the move-in date match the story? Do the photos look like the same person at the same age? None of this is proof of anything; it is the list of things to ask about.

The 15-minute video call

Always before meeting in person, always before any money. A voice-only call or a long text exchange is not the same: you want to see a face reacting to questions in real time. Five questions do most of the work:

1. Where are you living now and why are you leaving? A clear, specific answer is normal. Vagueness, or a story about a terrible landlord and terrible flatmates, twice in a row, is a pattern.
2. What does a normal weekday look like for you? You learn the schedule, the noise, the guests and the work-from-home question without asking any of them directly.
3. How do you want to handle bills and shared stuff? You are checking whether they have an opinion, not which one.
4. What would make you move out early? Job, relationship, family. Everyone has an answer; the person who says "nothing" has not thought about it.
5. Can you cover the deposit and first month on move-in day? Ask it plainly. Money embarrassment now is cheaper than money embarrassment in month two.

Verification and references

You are not a landlord and you should not be photographing anyone's passport. What you can reasonably ask for:

• A verified badge on the platform you met on. On DomuHQ identity verification is optional, and the people who choose to do it are telling you something by doing it. It confirms the person is who the profile says; it does not tell you whether they wash dishes.
• One previous flatmate or landlord you can message. Not a friend, not a parent. One short exchange ("did they pay on time, would you live with them again") is enough, and a person with nothing to hide will offer it.
• For the lease itself the landlord will ask everyone for ID and usually proof of income, so you do not have to. If the person refuses that step with the landlord, that is your answer.

Red flags that end the conversation

They want to send money before you have met, or ask you to send money to "hold" a room. They are abroad and a friend will hand over keys. They refuse a video call but are keen to move the chat to WhatsApp or Telegram in the first two messages. Their story about the current flat changes between messages. They pressure you to decide today. Any one of these is enough.

The room-side version of these scams is covered in How to Spot a Scam Rental Listing; the people-side ones look the same because they are the same people.

Yellow flags you can live with, if you talk about them

A partner who stays over most nights (that is a fourth flatmate on the bills). A job with night shifts. A pet. Working from home five days a week in a flat with thin walls. Smoking on the balcony. None of these are problems by themselves; every one of them is a problem when it is discovered in week three instead of agreed in week zero.

The one thing most people skip

Compatibility is not chemistry. Two people can get on brilliantly over coffee and drive each other mad over a sink. Before you commit, compare the boring things: wake-up time, cleanliness, guests, noise, how you each deal with a problem. On DomuHQ the compatibility assessment scores exactly those lifestyle and personality points, so you see a compatibility score for each person before the first message and can spend the coffee on the questions that matter. Then write the group agreement before anyone signs a lease.

Sources: practical guidance based on how shared tenancies in Czechia actually go wrong, not legal advice. For what a landlord may lawfully ask of tenants, see the Civil Code and the Czech Office for Personal Data Protection (ÚOOÚ) guidance on tenant screening.