The sober living resident agreement, explained honestly

What a sober living resident agreement is

A sober living resident agreement is the written document a resident signs when they move in. It spells out the terms of living in the home: what the fees are and what they cover, the rules everyone follows, what happens if someone relapses, how guests and passes work, and how someone can leave or be asked to leave. It goes by a lot of names — resident agreement, house contract, occupancy agreement, sober living rental agreement — but the job is the same.

Every home needs one in writing, and the reason is simple: a verbal understanding is remembered differently by everyone in the room. A written, signed agreement protects both sides. It protects the resident by making the rules, fees, and refund terms clear up front, so no one is surprised by a charge or a consequence they never agreed to. It protects the operator by documenting exactly what each person agreed to, keeping the home consistent from one resident to the next, and creating a record that helps demonstrate you treated everyone the same way — which matters for Fair Housing defensibility.

If you are still setting up your home, read this alongside our guides on how to start a sober living home and sober living house rules — the agreement is where your rules become something everyone has actually signed.

The sections a resident agreement typically includes

Homes structure their agreements differently, and the right contents depend on your program and your state. But across well-run recovery residences, most agreements cover the same core areas. Here is what each one is for.

Fees & payment terms

The heart of the document for most disputes. This section typically states the weekly or monthly fee, what it covers (bed, utilities, testing supplies, and so on), when it is due, and how it is paid. It usually also covers any deposit and, importantly, the refund policy — what a resident gets back, and does not get back, if they leave early or are discharged. Refund terms are where residents most often feel blindsided, so spelling them out plainly protects everyone. See our related guide on the cost to start a sober living home for how fees fit into the bigger picture.

House rules reference

Rather than reprinting every rule, agreements usually reference the home's house rules and confirm the resident has read and agreed to them. That keeps the contract clean while tying it to the full rules document. Our sober living house rules guide walks through what those typically include.

Drug-testing consent

Because testing is central to a sober living, agreements typically include the resident's consent to drug and alcohol testing — random and for-cause — and describe what a positive or refused test means for their stay. Getting consent in writing up front avoids arguments about whether a test was allowed.

The relapse & discharge policy

One of the most important and most sensitive sections. It typically describes what happens after a relapse or a serious rule violation: whether there is a warning, a return-to-treatment expectation, or discharge, and how much notice is given. A clear, consistent policy protects the community while treating the individual fairly. How discharge can legally be carried out, though, is exactly where state law comes in — more on that below.

Guest & pass rules

Agreements usually cover visitors, overnight passes, and multi-day passes: who can visit, when, and how a resident requests time away. Documenting pass approvals matters — an approval remembered from a text thread is not much of a record.

Personal property & belongings after discharge

A frequently overlooked but important section: what happens to a resident's belongings if they leave suddenly or are discharged. Agreements typically state how long the home holds property, how a resident retrieves it, and what happens to items left behind. This one prevents a lot of conflict.

Grievance / dispute process

A good agreement gives residents a defined way to raise a concern or dispute a decision. Beyond being fair, a written grievance process is part of the standards many NARR-affiliated homes are expected to meet.

Term & termination

This covers how long the arrangement lasts, whether it renews, the notice each side gives to end it, and the grounds on which the home can end it. The exact legal weight of this section depends heavily on your state — keep reading.

Signatures & date

The agreement is only real once it is signed and dated by both the resident and the home, with each keeping a copy. An unsigned agreement in a binder proves nothing.

The legal reality, honestly

Here is the single most important thing to understand, and the thing generic templates online get wrong by pretending there is one answer.

Sober living resident agreements are usually structured as an occupancy or residency agreement, not a standard residential lease. The reasoning is that a recovery home is shared, program-based housing with rules and accountability, rather than a straightforward landlord renting a unit to a tenant. That distinction can matter for Fair Housing protection and for how discharge is handled.

But — and this is the caveat that matters most — whether a resident is legally treated as a "tenant" with full eviction protections, or as a "licensee" or "guest" who can be removed through the home's own discharge process, depends on your state and on how your agreement is written. This is not universal. Some states treat sober living residents as tenants entitled to a formal eviction process, notice periods, and the courts. Other states, or other fact patterns, treat the arrangement as a revocable license to occupy. Courts have gone different ways, and a clause calling something an "occupancy agreement" does not automatically make it one in the eyes of your state's law.

Two related principles are well established and worth stating plainly. First, sober living homes are generally protected as housing under the Fair Housing Act and the ADA — residents in recovery are a protected class — which is part of why homes usually can't be licensed like treatment facilities. Second, paying or receiving fees for resident referrals — "patient brokering" — is illegal in many states and unethical everywhere. Where exactly those lines fall in your situation, again, is a question for an attorney.

Where to get real answers

We won't hand you a fill-in-the-blank contract, because a template we can't stand behind for your state could hurt you more than help you. What we can do is point you to the people who give real answers:

• Your state's NARR affiliate — find it through the National Alliance for Recovery Residences at narronline.org. NARR affiliates set recovery-residence standards, and many have guidance for operators in their state.
• A local attorney familiar with recovery housing and your state's landlord-tenant law — the one person who can tell you whether your residents are treated as tenants where you operate.
• SAMHSA (samhsa.gov) and HUD (hud.gov) for federal Fair Housing background.

New to all of this? Start with what a sober living home is for the foundation this all sits on.

An agreement only protects people once it's signed

Here is the practical failure point we see most: the home writes a good agreement, and then it lives on paper. It gets signed at move-in during a chaotic first day, filed in a binder, and when it actually matters — a fee dispute, a discharge, a question about what someone agreed to — no one can find the signed copy, or it turns out it was never signed at all.

An agreement only protects anyone if it is written, signed, dated, and everyone has a copy. That is exactly the gap Sober Living Companion closes. Operators write and store their house agreement in the system, and residents e-sign it in the app at move-in. The signed copy — timestamped and tied to the resident's record — is always there. No lost paperwork, no "I never signed that," no digging through a binder that walked out of the office.

How Sober Living Companion helps you run the home

The e-signed agreement is one piece. Once a resident is in, Sober Living Companion is the system of record for the whole home: resident tracking, membership and rent payments (card, CashApp, Zelle, with partial payments tracked), drug-test (UA) logging, beds and occupancy, guest and pass approvals, curfew GPS check-ins, meeting attendance, and multi-house dashboards with per-house manager roles.

It's a flat $60/month per home, unlimited residents — no per-bed math. The resident app is free, forever. Because we're a 501(c)(3), your membership is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law, and it funds rent assistance and free counseling for people in early recovery. Your first month is free, and you can cancel anytime.