Bills account for 7 students

shopndrop

Does anyone know of a bank or building society that will allow an account to be held in more than 2 names. My son is about to share a house with 6 others and they have agreed to save a set amount each month towards bills. Also is it possible to have telephone/utility bills in several names so that one person is not solely responsible ?

jonesMUFCforever

shopndrop wrote:

Does anyone know of a bank or building society that will allow an account to be held in more than 2 names. My son is about to share a house with 6 others and they have agreed to save a set amount each month towards bills. Also is it possible to have telephone/utility bills in several names so that one person is not solely responsible ?

LTSB will allow up to 4 I think BUT unless there is at least £500 per month going into account you may only be allowed a basic account (no cheque book) and all of you will have to turn up together with id and address confirmation.
You may be better off with a club society type of account where there is no restriction on amount of signatories as long as you are happy to let say 2 or 3 sign on the account. It will be cumbersome to say the least if all of you have to sign a cheque!!
I don't know about utility bills - sorry
Eric

shopndrop

Presumably by "club society type of account" this is an account where you don't get any interest on the money in the account?

Savvy_Sue

shopndrop wrote:

Presumably by "club society type of account" this is an account where you don't get any interest on the money in the account?

Not necessarily. Look on the Small Biz & Charity Organizers board: there's a sticky about Bank Accounts for charities and Not for Profit groups. They might have to produce a 'minute' of a meeting to set up a Club account, but eg Alliance and Leicester do a deposit account linked to their Club account, and money can be moved by phone (probably by internet these days) instantly into the current account. I'm sure they could do it by thinking of a name for the house - I almost lived in the '********* Elephant Breeding Centre' at one point but they chose a different - almost equally inappropriate - name instead, and I'm sure there was a bank account in the name of the house.

They may not be able to get an account with 7 signatories, but at work we've got 'any 2 of 6' on a charity account, and I've had 'any 2 of 4' on a club account with A&L. I'd have thought having 2 signatories would be adequate protection to stop any one of them cleaning out the account, as long as they don't get into the habit of pre-signing cheques before they're written.

A&L let you have cards for two people with which you can withdraw cash at the PO as well, that could be useful for some things, possibly.

Utility bills, yes I believe you can have all names on the account, which is sensible as then all are jointly and severally liable, BUT if anyone moves out before the end of the year they need to write and get their name removed otherwise if a debt is left at the end of the year they will still be liable!

Between the 7 of them, hopefully there's at least one of them who knows the difference between a credit and a debit, I'd let that one be 'Treasurer' and keep an eye on the bills, take responsibility for paying them and collecting everyone's contributions. If there's two of them, have Joint Treasurers!

sleepy

I'm about to graduate,and for the last two years my housemates and I have had a joint account with Natwest. It is in 4 names (because that's how many of us there are, don't know if they'll let you have more than that,but there's no harm in asking) and any two signitures can be used on cheques on other things.
If I remember rightly, HSBC wouldn't let us have more than 2 people named on the account,so I wouldn't bother trying there.
We set it up so we each had a standing order into the house account and the bills (gas, electric,phone, broadband) all came out of by direct debit, this meant we didn't have to worry about anything or risk someone "forgetting" to pay money in or a bill.

aaazza

I am moving into a house next year after being in halls and was also going to ask about a 'house bank account'. It looks like I will give Natwest a try, there are of four of us including me so hopefully this won't be a problem.

aaazza

dbuk44

hi there... as an ex-sharer in houses of 6 or more I remember this dilema well.
The club account seems like a good idea, hope that works out for you.

I would suggest the person who is responsible for each type of bill take a small "bond" payment from everybody in advance (exactly the same as i`m sure the landlord did). If anyone is away on holiday, or sick, etc etc then this bond can be used to cover his share.

Call the ultilities and they will tell you the average consumption and bill for the house.

BTW, the biggest problem with sharing is with the phone :-(
Strongly suggest getting one of these new "all inclusive" plans for unlimited dialing at a fixed price (if sharing w. internationals, google for "Swiftcall" -- £20 for unlimited national and international calls).

Hope this helps

shopndrop

Have just contacted BT to ask about the phone bill going in say 2 names but they are adamant that it can only go in one name. Any ways around this?

Lucie_2

In my not-quite-forgotten-yet student days we all took responsibility for a separate bill - gas, electric, phone etc. However, I'm not sure I can think of 7 different bills for everyone to take charge of, we were lucky as there were only 4 of us (5 if you count one girl's bf who came to stay for 2 weeks & didn't leave for 2 years!).
Surely banks must be used to this kind of thing, especially banks in student areas?

trace-j

Its a tricky situation but its a fact of living in a shared house. When I was a student the electric was on a meter so when it was low I got a tenner out of people- never had any probs. Each person also took responsibility for a different bill each (so one name to the utility company). A monthly fee was worked out for each bill. How much trouble you get depends on trustworthness and reliability of your housemates!

sad_gills_fan

shopndrop wrote:

Have just contacted BT to ask about the phone bill going in say 2 names but they are adamant that it can only go in one name. Any ways around this?

BT can put the bill in a million names but the account can only be in one persons name.
What I mean is that for BT, the account holder details may show differently to the billing address, hence why they can amend the billing names to include others.

For ease, I would imagine that space on the bill would only allow a few though. Hope that helps.