The co-living pact is an agreement that co-tenants must sign under Article 72 of the decree of 15 March 2018. It organises rent and charge splits, the deposit, personal inventories, utilities, insurance and how a co-tenant is replaced. The pact is compulsory, though the parties can adapt the official model.
Alongside the co-living lease, the decree of 15 March 2018 requires the co-tenants to sign a co-living pact (pacte de colocation) among themselves under Article 72 (logement.wallonie.be, 2018). It is the internal rulebook of the shared home, sitting beside the lease that binds the group to the landlord. Signing a pact is mandatory; what the pact contains is largely for the co-tenants to agree.
The Walloon Government published a model pact by the order of 28 June 2018, but that model is a template, not a straitjacket: parties may use it or draft their own, provided a pact exists (logement.wallonie.be, 2018). This is the nuance that confuses people. The obligation is to have a pact, not to copy the official one word for word.
A well-built pact addresses how the total rent is divided and paid, how common and private charges are shared, how the deposit is constituted and released, an inventory of each person’s belongings, who arranges utilities and insurance, and above all how arrivals, departures and replacements are handled. Because a departing co-tenant can be released cleanly by presenting a replacement approved by the landlord and the others, these replacement clauses are the most valuable part of the document (logement.wallonie.be, 2018).
The surprising practical effect is that the pact protects tenants from each other far more than from the landlord. The lease already sets the joint and several liability toward the owner; the pact is what stops one housemate’s departure or unpaid share from destabilising the rest. A vague or missing pact is where most co-living disputes begin. Brussels and Flanders do not impose an identical pact, so this is a specifically Walloon requirement.
At a glance
- Legal basis: Article 72, decree of 15 March 2018
- Status: signing a pact is mandatory
- Official model: order of 28 June 2018, usable but not compulsory in its exact wording
- Rent and charges: how they are split and paid
- Deposit: constitution and release between co-tenants
- Personal inventory: each co-tenant’s own belongings
- Utilities and insurance: who contracts and pays
- Replacements: how a leaver is replaced and released