The pitfalls of house sharing..?

Pssst

Never done it before but would anyone like to share experiences of house sharing i,e renting a room from someone whom you previously didnt know?

Presumably in such an arrangement you have no legal rights and could be hoofed out with very little notice?

kunekune

There are different ways of sharing a house. What I think you mean is being a lodger, and yes, you don't have many rights. One way to look at it is that no court would ever force people to live together if they didn't want to (well, not in the 21st century). If you rent one room in a house where everyone has a separate tenancy, then you would have more security if it was a fixed term (but you wouldn't have any say in who was in the other rooms). The third way to do it is a house share where everyone is on the lease, and as a group you have the same rights as other tenants. BUt when that goes wrong, it can be pretty awful, since you can't leave before the lease is up unless you do a deal, generally involving a new person for your room. If it was me, I'd actually feel safer as a lodger in that being able to be hoofed out also means you can get out yourself, and the worst problems seem to come when one person in a house is stuck and can't leave. The houses might well be nicer and the other lodgers more 'like you'. Security comes with an obligation to see out a fixed term or notice period.

charliee_3

i used to live in a shared house, it was a good deal as we all had seperate contracts with the landlady, so if a person left, or didnt pay their share of the bills we were not liable to make up the difference. we had a rota for the cleaning where there was a list of jobs that needed to be done in each room of the shared areas and we would take turns to do the whole lot, so we all had to clean once every 4 weeks. it specified that it had to be done between the thursday and the sunday so that someone couldnt just clean the day after the last person and then no cleaning for 2 weeks!
we all put in £5 per month into the house kitty and i would buy cleaning supplies, toilet rolls, etc once per month as i had a car.
If anyone left, the landlady left it to us find a new person so we could pick someone who would fit in with the house (hopefully!). She was a fantastic landlady and we were really lucky. she would deal with all the bills (we paid her a set amount each month and she would let us know if it changed) and If anything needed replacing we just had to ask and she would tell you to get a new one and refund the money straight away.
It worked really well for us on the whole, of course we had diagreements and the odd problems wth people not doing their washing up, etc, but you just have to deal with it.
I would suggest you look round lots of them, meet as many of the people you would be sharing with as you can and get a feel for the places that are availale as tey are all very different.
Find out what sort of house it is to see if you will fit.. ie a student house will generally be up late, in a lot and possibly having parties until late on a regular basis, whereas a proffessionals house will be mostly empty during day, fairly quiet at night, but there may be issues wth shared bathroms if everyone is getting ready at the same time in the morning.
Also there is a difference between a houe like ours (where we were all equal, all just renting a room so noone in charge) to one where one of the people is the owner or the head renter so they are the 'boss' of the house.

i would say that as long as you like the people you are sharing with and like the feel of the house, are prepared to wash up your own things quickly (a sink full of abandoned dishes is the sticking point of many houseshares), pull your weight on the house cleaning and are respectful of the other people sharing the space (hopefully your housemates will do likewise) then you will have a happy houseshare, but i know it is hit and miss.. the plus side is that you can move out and find somewhere else if it doesnt work...
hope that helps!

GrammarGirl

I've lived in shared houses for 4 years now and am ready to (finally!) live just me and the boyfriend. It really depends on the kind of person you are... you might find with house sharing that you never have true privacy and the house never quite feels like home. I hang out in my room quite a bit because I like privacy, but I'm sociable enough to enjoy sitting with my housemates (who are both close friends) too. In the house I shared last year, I spent 80% of my time in my room and the other 20% cooking! I hated some people I shared with and just could not face being around them. That's the danger with sharing - if you don't get on, it can be hell.

As for it not ever really feeling like home... that's more a personal thing. It doesn't feel like home to me because I don't have complete control over the whole house... I like things a certain way and my housemates don't necessarily agree! But compromises must be made, otherwise you'd always be arguing. Sometimes you can't cook tea when you want to because the kitchen is too busy. You can't watch your favourite programmes on the TV all the time. You can't hog the bathroom. Sharing responsibilities can be annoying too - whose turn is it to buy toilet roll, to clean the oven, to hoover the carpets, etc.

Bearing all that in mind, I've found, on the whole, house sharing is great. I've made some brilliant friends and living together really strengthens relationships. I've also learnt how to be totally self-sufficient. So now I'm saving to buy a house, but I'll be house sharing until I can afford it!

c1appyxkx

can anyone help we let a family friend rent our spare room for 50.00 week we said he could have tea coffee and snacks but would have to feed himself i would do his washing well he lost his job started paying rent late then was sneaking about eating our food when we were out or in bed generally taking us for fools he didnt attempt looking fo a job and sat in room all day on his computer which used loads more electric and never switched his tv ,pc or games console off at all i asked him to as it was using so much electric and said he should also look for a job as it was not a doss house as such we also let his little boy stay over and i would feed him as our friend had no money his own mum didnt want him to stay at hers either .well to cut a long story short he took advantage of our kindness and we asked him to leave he moved out 3 month ago he owed rent also but couldnt pay he eventually took his clothes and moved in with his brother and said he would come back for his tv ,pc and console and also pay what he owed .after lots of phone calls texts he still hasnt come for his things we also need to re paint bedroom as he has left black marks all over the walls .i know we sound petty but am sick of been taken for a fool so can i legally just keep his things andsay to him it for rent owing ,re decorating of room and storage....at the end of the day he ws supposed to be a family friend we helped out at a time where his own mum didnt want him staying with her anymore i feel awful but need to know what we can do thankyou ..