# Add an existing person to a household

> PositiveForm guide · Households · HH-002
> Canonical page: https://positiveform.com/guides/households/add-existing-person/
> This Markdown: https://positiveform.com/guides/households/add-existing-person.md

**Summary:** Attach an existing unassigned person to a household. The selected person appears once in the household with the intended household role.  
**Who can do this:** Organization owners, Managers, Staff  
**Required access:** `members.change`  
**Where in PositiveForm:** `/households/:householdId/overview`  
**Status:** Draft: not yet verified against a deployed PositiveForm build. Labels may differ.

> Draft: this guide describes the household profile redesign at docs/plans/2026-08-25-member-profile-redesign. The household opens on Overview, and Add person moved from a People tab into the header. It has not yet been replayed against the deployed demo.

## Who this is for

This guide is for **desk staff, managers, and owners** putting somebody who
already has a record into a household: a sibling who started separately, a
parent added later, or a member whose family you are only now setting up.

The point of doing it this way is that it **moves** the existing person
rather than making a second copy of them. Their attendance, ranks, and
history come with them.

You need the `members.change` permission.

## Before you begin

- Search for the person first, so you know they already exist. If they do
  not, create them new instead; see [Create a member](https://positiveform.com/guides/members/create-member/).
- Know that PositiveForm only offers people who are not already in a
  household. Somebody already placed will not appear in the search, which is
  what stops you putting one person in two families.

## Steps

1. Click **Households** in the left navigation and open the household. It
   opens on **Overview**, with **People** cards for everybody already in the
   family.
2. Click **Add person** in the header.
3. Choose **Add existing member**, which moves someone who already has a
   record into this household. The other choice, **New member**, creates a
   person from scratch and adds them here.
4. Type at least two characters into **Search by name or email**. Until then
   PositiveForm says **Start typing to search.**, and while it looks it says
   **Searching…**
5. Find the person in the results and click **Add** beside them.

## Expected outcome

PositiveForm confirms with **Added to household**, and the person's card
appears once among **People** on **Overview**, with their role and, if
anything is outstanding for them, a required-item count.

They are moved, not copied. Their member record, attendance, ranks, and
history are unchanged and now sit inside this family, which is what makes
shared billing and sibling handling work.

The household's member and adult counts update to match. Continue in
[Manage household people and safety context](https://positiveform.com/guides/households/manage-household-people/) to set their relationships and
emergency contacts, or in
[Maintain member profile and notes](https://positiveform.com/guides/members/maintain-member-profile/) to finish their own profile.

## Recovery

If the search says **No unassigned members found.**, the person is already
in a household. That is the safeguard working. Open their member record to
see which household they are in, and move them from there rather than adding
a duplicate here.

If nothing happens as you type, you have entered fewer than two characters.

If adding fails, PositiveForm shows **Couldn't add that person.** with the
reason, and nothing changes.

If you added the wrong person, remove them from this household; see
[Manage household people and safety context](https://positiveform.com/guides/households/manage-household-people/). Removing them from a household does
not delete them.

If you cannot find somebody who genuinely has no household, check the
location picker: you may be looking at a different location's people.

## Related guides

- [Manage household people and safety context](https://positiveform.com/guides/households/manage-household-people/) — set relationships, emergency
  contacts, and remove somebody added by mistake.
- [Maintain member profile and notes](https://positiveform.com/guides/members/maintain-member-profile/) — finish the person's own
  profile once they are in the right family.

---

Source: PositiveForm customer guides, https://positiveform.com/guides/. 
Every guide as one file for AI assistants: https://positiveform.com/llms-full.txt. 
Guide index: https://positiveform.com/llms.txt.