Advice on 4 people renting a 4 bedroom house

paddedjohn

OP since you have been mates for over 10 years then all the more reason to change your mind, you probably wont be mates for much longer. The best solution IMO would be to find a 2 bedder and share that with 1 good friend.

BitterAndTwisted

If you go ahead with this plan look up what a "joint & several" tenancy means. Worst-case scenario is that you have two who fall out with everyone do a bunk with not settling up their share of the bills and you have to find all of the rent between who's left. And try to get the landlord's permission to replace them. Then a huge discussion about how much more rent the person with the only decently-sized room with the en-suite is going to pay.

Clearlier

You haven't mentioned food. If you're living at home I'm guessing that you're not paying for your own food. I'd add at least £100 a month for that.

Whoever gets bedroom 1 should pay more for it. I'd say something like £220 for the big one and £160 each for the smaller ones which are much of a muchness given the dimensions you gave.

Sit down and work out the nitty gritty of paying bills, doing the cleaning, rules about friends staying over, smoking in the house, shared or individual food, creating a small fund for unexpected costs and anything and everything else that you can think of. If you don't do this then you'll find that everybody drops their standards to whoever has the lowest which can turn into a huge mess.

Go for it for sure but with your eyes open and an exit strategy. If at all possible don't sign a lease for longer than 6 months and make sure that you can afford to pay your share for those 6 months should the worst happen and it proves impossible to live with your friends.

Andyhutch

Well thank you to everyone for their advice, I feel a bit better knowing the costs are about right, we're going to view it on Saturday so i'll take it from there and decide what to do.

Thanks again
Andy

RAS

Hi

You need to understand the legal context in which you are renting. As mentioned above, by law if 4 if you rent a house together and one fails to pay the rent, the other three have to make up the deficit. In fact if three bog off home, the remaining tenant is responsible for the whole rental cost.

Joint and several liability means that you are all responsible for the whole debt not just one quarter of it. And a rental contract means that you are all responsible for the whole rent until the end of the contract even if you move out.

Joint and several liability affects a number of other bills, not least Council tax.

This means that if you arrange for one person to pay the CT out of their account and give them money to cover it each month and that they fail to pay, you are still responsible for paying the full Council Tax. It does not matter to the Council or the bailiffs if you have already paid the money once to your mate.

We see so many people with financial problems with joint and several liability wrecking peoples' loves after relationship breakdowns.

if you go for this, you have to have a monthly meeting where all bills are settled and everyone provides proof that the bill for which they are responsible has been paid.

HappyMJ

Personally I'd rent it by yourself as the tenant. Then rent each room out to your friends as lodgers for a fixed weekly amount. If they don't pay then kick them out and get another lodger. This way you can have the main bedroom with the ensuite and can charge them something like £80 a week all inclusive for each of the smaller rooms. Maybe plus or minus £5 depending if they have the larger of the 3 bedrooms or the smaller one. You could then get £1,040 per calander month from your lodgers and you can pay the bills all in your name.

You can't just divide £1,100 by four and expect each to pay £275...Who gets the main bedroom with ensuite?

Judith_W

HappyMJ - would this not have a tax implication - over the rent a room threshold?

HappyMJ

Judith_W wrote: »

HappyMJ - would this not have a tax implication - over the rent a room threshold?

Possibly but all the expenses such as the rent and all the bills can be deducted so there is no or little profit over the year. There will be voids. Who takes the risk on voids? I wouldn't want to pay a third of the rent if someone left so the lead tenant taking control and all the risk in my opinion is better. You don't need to use the rent a room scheme.

pinkteapot

Rent = £700

Tax = £200 (its band E) - our four bed house is a Band D and costs £148 per month so you're probably not far out.

Gas & Electric = £120 (moneysupermarket.com @ high user) - ours averages to £90 per month over the year and we use a lot - have the heating on a lot etc. But there's only two of us so for four this seems a fair estimate.

Water = £30 per month (on a meter) - we are metered and pay £20 per month for two of us.

TV licence £15 per month? - think it's about £12 at present but yes, you're about right

Sky £30 (I currently pay this at home includes line rental, phone, BB, tele so know this for a fact) - is this for basic packages? We pay £85 per month for TV, phone line, calls and broadband but have movies/sport on the TV package and unlimited downloads on the broadband.

I’ve never moved out and had to pay bills etc. so am I being too optimistic or do you think this I about right? Also when renting a house do we need to pay house insurance or is this covered by the landlord?

The landlord has buildings insurance, as they own the building. You need contents insurance for your belongings.

Jonesy_McJones

Andyhutch wrote: »

Well I live in Co. Durham, it quite cheap here, the house is probably worth around 200k, in a modern estate built within the past 10 years so must have a modern boiler and it’s got double glazing, so guessing its quite a warm house. I got the cost of the council tax from a web site based on band E in my area, if it’s cheaper then it’s a bonus! I don’t know exactly how it works but we could all maybe set up a bank account and all pay a direct debit into that account which will pay for the rent? If not then maybe split it between 2 peoples bank accounts? Can more than one person sign the contract for responsibility? As for bills, if we spread these out so someone pays gas, someone pays water, etc. This may work? We still need to discuss all this in detail. We’ve all been close friends for about 10 years I trust them a lot, if someone does drop out then I’m pretty sure I could find someone else anyway.
The bond is £700 + £700 for one month’s rent in advance so I’ve already thought about that, the estate agent mentioned about credit checks and employer references, I think all of these will be fine. Regarding the landlord allowing us to rent it, this is something I will have to find out, the estate agent seemed ok with it but it’s possible he won’t but I’m basing this on us being able to go ahead. And yes there could be issues with petty things like toilet paper etc. My parents have already drummed this into me but as I say we’re all pretty close mates and these are things we’d have to sort out IF it comes to it.
I just want to make sure I’ve worked out the monthly costs pretty accurately and make sure there isn’t anything I’ve missed, I don’t want to move in then find out it costs a lot more than expected!

Would definitely recommend NOT setting up a joint account with friends - you'll become financially linked, so if one person has a bad credit record (CCJs, defaults, late payments) this could impact on all of you.

The other thing I would say is that you never really know someone until you live with them. Having lived in houseshares on and off for about a decade, I can think of one old housemate who was a good friend until we houseshared (with others) - we haven't spoken to him in years now. On the flip side, one of my closest friends now was someone who I didn't know until I moved into a houseshare.

The last houseshare I lived in, we all put £5 a month in a jar in one of the kitchen cupboards - the money was used for loo rolls, washing up liquid, hoover bags etc. It might seem like a trivial thing now, but if one person feels like they're always paying out for stuff that everybody uses they might not be a happy camper for long...