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When living with others, you might have to work out who is responsible for paying what rent. In a perfect world, every shared house would have four or five evenly sized and equipped rooms. However, it often happens that some rooms are far more desirable than others. In this case, how do you work out the best ways to split rent so every housemate feels happy with their renting situation?
Splitting rent and utility bills fairly when sharing a house or flat seems like it’d be a doddle. The reality though is that someone will always have a bone to pick with the solution you’ve devised. What are the best ways to fairly divvy up the rent between every member of your house then? In this article, we’ve gone over a handful of the most popular methods for doing just that.
Sometimes, the easiest solution can also be the best one (or the most uncomplicated). To do this, you simply divide the rent by the number of tenants living in the property. The problem here is that some housemates might feel a little annoyed or hard done by, especially if they’re paying the same as everyone else for a much smaller room.
Equal splits are the quickest to work out, but aren’t necessarily the fairest.
Most houses don’t have identically sized bedrooms anyway, so it can make sense to set an individual price for each room based on how big it is.
To do this, measure the square meterage of each bedroom and divide it by the total square meterage of the house. This will give you the percentage of space that each room takes up. You can then apply each of these percentages to the total cost of the rent.
Another way to do this is by dividing the total rent by the number of square metres for each room. This will determine the cost of each room based on per square metre.
This approach isn’t foolproof, but does mean that you’ll literally be paying for the size of your room. However, it doesn’t take into account what’s in and around the room.
Aside from size, there are some other ways you can assign a value to each room. You and your housemates should think about what each room contains and whereabouts in the house it’s located. Does it have an ensuite? Is there a walk-in wardrobe? What about a balcony? Is this room better furnished than the rest? How near is it to the bathroom? These are all valid questions to think about when deciding which rooms should be worth the most (and the least).
Putting a value on everything can be tricky, but Splitwise’s calculator will help you overcome this pricing hurdle (you’ll just have to convert dollars to pounds).
This is a rent-splitting method that most applies to couples. Think about your daily habits, including how much water you use, how often lights are switched on/off and so on. As a couple, this amount should then be doubled. A couple will also need extra storage space in common areas (including a precious extra fridge shelf).
If a flat with two rooms is rented to three people (with two sharing one room and the other a single occupancy) then rent can be split 50/50 between the rooms (or slightly adjusted for size) and split three-ways for the common areas.
For example:
Assign the common areas a value of £150 per month. Room 1 (slightly larger) gets a value of £500 and room 2 (slightly smaller) gets a value of £400.
The solo housemate will then pay £450 (£50 for the common areas and £400 for their room).
The couple will pay a combined £600 (£100 for the common areas and £500 for their room). This works out at £300 each.
If there’s a significant difference in income between you and who you’re renting with, then it might be worth paying rent based on these differing salaries. To be honest, this only tends to work when you’re renting with a partner. Good luck getting someone you’ve just met to agree to pay more for their rent because they earn more!
Some people might not even be willing to reveal how much they earn, especially if you’ve just moved in together. With that being said, this method does still work out for some.
If you live in a property where bills aren’t included with the rent, then you’ll also need to work out how to split bills between you and your housemates. This can become a bit of a headache when you factor in the multiple bills you need to keep on top of, including utilities, water, council tax, broadband and TV.
To keep things simple, you should decide who’ll have the direct debits for each household bill taken out of their account. To avoid this bill payer having to chase everyone else up each month, you should all set up the necessary standing orders so money arrives at the right time. Being able to effectively budget will help you keep track of your cash so you always have enough to pay the bills.
There’s a much easier solution to the issue of splitting bills in a shared house. Resooma Bills bundles all of your bills into one easy payment, including utilities, Wi-Fi and TV. We then equally split bills between you and your housemates, so there’s no need to worry about any awkward bill chats or having to chase housemates up for their share.
Rather than have multiple direct debits leaving your account each month, you’ll have just one bill to pay, with each housemate being responsible for their share. Managing bills can feel like a daunting task, which is where our shared bill packages come in useful. Let us handle the stress for you!
You can also follow our handy energy-saving tips to try and cut down on your energy bill going forward.
If one of your housemates stops paying their share of the bills and isn’t willing to pay you back then you might be able to get any money owed through small claims court. You can check out Citizens Advice for more info on this.
In the majority of cases, we wouldn’t recommend you and your housemates open a joint bank account. Doing this will link your credit histories together and could give you problems in the future. There’s also an issue of trust. Account holders can pay into the account, but they can also withdraw from it at any time.
When it comes to splitting rent, a couple sharing a single bedroom can throw another spanner in the works. Even though only one bedroom is being used, it does mean an extra person using the common spaces.
Justin Ferguson of Justin Ferguson Property Specialists believes that couples should pay more. He’s suggested that the cost of renting a couple’s room should be 15% more than the other rooms in the house.
Already sorted your house but need to set up bills? We can help with this too – we set up and split utilities for you. Get a free quote for your utilities here.
All your utility bills in one monthly payment, split between housemates
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All your utility bills in one monthly payment, split between housemates
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