Accommodation Requirement: Licencee versus Exclusive Tenant?

[aeb245]

Hello,
My husband and I are in the process of applying for my visa. I am his wife with US citizenship, and he is a British Citizen. Regarding the accommodation requirement, I've searched on the immigration boards and haven't found this particular situation and would really appreciate anyone's advice, insight, or experience.

My husband currently rents a double bedroom in a large shared house in London. His landlord is owner of the property and has a licence to have 16 occupants as licensees of the individual bedrooms with shared bathroom facilities and shared Spam/laundry.

I have stayed in this room with my husband when we were still engaged for two months while I was in London with tourist status. His landlord is perfectly happy to write a letter confirming that he has an agreement to be there and that I have permission to join him, and as his agreement does not have a term limit, we are allowed to stay indefinitely. In our letter's of introduction we include that we hope to stay in this house until I have employment after which we will seek our own 1 bedroom apartment.

We can provide the letter from our landlord, a copy of her licence, the record with the local council of her ownership of the property and license to house 16 occupants. The only issue is that the licence agreement between my husband and the landlord has wording that might call into question our exclusive use of the room.

Please find three clauses of the agreement below:

"Declaration: This agreement is not intended to confer exclusive possession upon the Licensee/s nor to create the relationship between the Owner/s and the Licensees/s, and the Licensees shall not be entitled to Assured Shorthold Tenancy, or Statutory Periodic Tenancy under the Housing Acts 1988, or to any other statutory security of tenure now or upon the determination of the Licence."

"Shared Room and Facilities: The Owner/s and the Licensee agreed to share: 5.1 The occupation of the Room with Licensee/s."

"Licensee's Rights: Provided that, the Licensee performs the agreements on his/her part referred to under "The Licensee Agrees"; the Owner/s shall not interrupt or interfere with the Licensee's right of peacefully to occupy the Room except when is really necessary such as to carry out the Landords obligations or duties that conferred by this agreement or by law."

The room IS ours to use, we have keys to its door as does our landlord. Our landlord has only ever needed in to perform maintenance and check fire alarms, as fire safety is one of the requirements of her licence. But because the License Agreement does not use the wording exclusive as stipulated does that deem this an unsuitable accommodation?

His mother and stepfather have also agreed to provide us accommodation upon my arrival should his current accommodation not be suitable, but as her apartment only has only two bedrooms, 4 people in a 2 bedroom apartment appears to be deemed overcrowding. It has a large living space but it is open plan to the Spam so I think the additional space does not legally count in regards to overcrowding.

Thanks in advance for any insight into this dilemma.