New current account for shared bills

Emma.d19

Hi!

I'm currently living in a shared house and the current named account holder is moving out, so it falls to me to open a new one.

I wanted to get some feedback on what the best account may be for us (at the moment we've just been using a housemates old current account)

We pay on average about £160 into the account between us (some on monthly s/o, others across lump sums across the year) and would probably benefit from the best possible arranged overdraft costs as it's sometimes likely we can go over whilst things are settling in and we've finished switching utilities etc

Any advice would be most appreciated!!

Willing2Learn

If the account is going to be used to pay shared household bills, then my recommendation would be an account that pays you cashback for your bill payments (DDs). Something like the Santander 123 Lite account or Natwest Reward account...

And welcome to the forum

PRAISETHESUN

As above - NatWest Rewards or Santander 123 are good bets for household bills. Just be wary about who has access to the account, particularly if you opt for a joint account (which I'd recommend against). You mention an overdraft so I have to stress that whoever's name the account is in is solely liable for the debt - I'd personally recommend against an account with an overdraft in this situation as if you open an account in your name and run up overdraft debt with the expectation that your housemates will pay you back, at the end of the day you are responsible for repaying the money if they decide not to pay you back.

Emma.d19

Willing2Learn wrote: »

If the account is going to be used to pay shared household bills, then my recommendation would be an account that pays you cashback for your bill payments (DDs). Something like the Santander 123 Lite account or Natwest Reward account...

And welcome to the forum

That sounds like a good shout, I’ll have an investigate! Thanks

Emma.d19

PRAISETHESUN wrote: »

As above - NatWest Rewards or Santander 123 are good bets for household bills. Just be wary about who has access to the account, particularly if you opt for a joint account (which I'd recommend against). You mention an overdraft so I have to stress that whoever's name the account is in is solely liable for the debt - I'd personally recommend against an account with an overdraft in this situation as if you open an account in your name and run up overdraft debt with the expectation that your housemates will pay you back, at the end of the day you are responsible for repaying the money if they decide not to pay you back.

We’re also against joint accounts! The overdraft was only a precaution for the months when a couple of extra payments (i.e the bills which aren’t monthly) come out all in the space of a couple of days, which is rare. In the past this has meant that we’ve been a little under one month, but usually a good deal over in the remaining months! Last time NatWest let us off the fees because we were only in overdraft for a fairly short while.

But will definitely look into the cash back accounts, thanks!

colsten

It seems to me as if the overdraft is more important to you than cashback. First Direct offer a free £250 overdraft, subject to status.