Should a Roommate be treated like a Tenant?

[Breanne Beadle]

Hi, Thanks for reading my post!

I am a new investor looking to rent a room in my house to free up some of my personal income for other opportunities. I am looking for a bit of professional advice. My question is if I am going to get a roommate in my house (owner/occupy), sharing the same space, should I have them do an application process like I would have a standard tenant renting the whole house? I plan to definitely have a lease agreement in writing, but should I make them also do a background check and credit check? Is that a fair thing to do? They would pay the fees for those screening processes. What do you think? If you were renting a room from someone would you pay for this to be considered?

(I would not be pulling from a pool of people that I already know, and I have never rented to anyone before)