Money Moral Dilemma: Should my housemate who works from home pay a greater share of the rent?

SeanMaria

Similar situation re LL combining bills with rent in share flat. Agree with the previous poster that LL needs to split your rent and bills and housemate needs to contribute more. Me being the one working from home, I volunteered to buy the toilet roll which also saves my housemate having to walk home in the cold/rain/dark with a bulky package. We're both frugal so no one is putting heating on unless necessary but some consideration goes a long way.

Lowry1986

Electric heating is very expensive especially on a daytime rate and there is no doubt that it will form a very significant part of your rental bill.  It maybe your housemates don't appreciate the extent to which working at home during the day adds to your rent.
Why not talk about that with them and ask your landord to give you some idea as to the overall cost of electricity.
It would seem very reasonable to ask your housemates to increase their contribution especially when they find how much working from home is costing you all.
It would not be unusual for all-electricity bills in the cooler months to be in the region of £400 to £500 pm, much of which would be daytime use. I am sure your landlord would confirm that.
I reckon very roughly £1000  per year is the extra cost of your housemates working at home. You still have the extra cost of getting to work.
Talk with your landlord and housemates.

gloriouslyhappy

Shell1989 said:

If you make good money, or significantly better money than him, I wouldn’t bother make it awkward for the sake of a couple pounds a month. If you’re in a worse position, perhaps you could justify such a conversation without it coming across greedy or petty.

It’s not just a couple of pounds though - having heating turned up during the day adds significantly to the cost, presumably why the landlord is raising the rent.

A conversation needs to be had with both landlord and housemate, to establish 1) how much of the rent increase is due to higher utility bills, and 2) how much extra the housemate should contribute. The housemate should be getting the working from home allowance - that could be the starting point of the discussion.

Any reasonable person would be open to at the very least discussing the situation around rent increases due to higher utilities aligned with working from home. If they’re not, perhaps it’s time to consider changing housemate or moving.

PennysIntoPounds

Are you sure your housemate has a fan or heating on every day? Do you not get any temperate days for most of the year like the rest of the country does?

If your flatmate is decent to live with in all other ways, tread carefully. They could tell you they don't appreciate being treated as your permanent unpaid security guard and post office when they're trying to work!

I would ask landlord for a breakdown of services paid for and if its possible for smart meters to be installed

silvercar

I can’t imagine a landlord being willing to declare how much of the increase is due to the utility bills, as that leaves them open to having to justify the rest of the increase.

Even if you got a figure for the increase due to bills, you need to calculate how much would be due to the price of energy increasing regardless of the amount used and how much is because of “extra” day time use. Without knowing that tariff and deals the landlord has secured it’s going to be difficult to calculate. The landlord should also be on a business tariff, even for a residential property.

2702

Yes he should pay more. Do not think you need to contact the landlord but that is up to you( your bills probably have increased but is also a chance for them to increase rent).Possibly he should pay £50 a month more but all relative to how much your rent/bills are. It is always disappointing that the one benefiting does offer to pay a bit more. Remember the person who has been hard done to is you so you do need to raise the issue. Up to you how far you want to go with it - move flat - fall out with housemate - or continue as things are is up to you.But this is a great opportunity to raise the issue.

SadieO

It gets tricky when starting to portion out things like this. What if OP has some time off work - should they up their contribution that month due to spending more days at home? What if flatmate goes on holiday, do they get to pay proportinally less that month due to not being there every day? Should one person pay more if they like deep hot baths rather than quick showers?

If you have a good relationship with your flatmate then it is worth thinking about whether this will damage it. I have read plenty of horror stories about nightmare roommates and a good one is worth a lot! I like @SeanMaria 's suggestion of the housemate chipping in a bit more for shared things around the house, maybe they could buy more of the things they use every day when OP is at work (milk, toilet roll etc). 

saajan_12

However you calculate it, I'd work out figure you're both happy with as a fairly static figure unless things significantly change, eg rent increases again or you start working from home more than x days a week. What you want to avoid is changing a simple monthly payment to an analysis day by day whenever someone goes on holiday or has a guest over. 

Knitsy

well if its all inclusive and LL doesn't increase rent then no. if LL does and if s/he states bills increase is main cause cud u investigate by how much they've increased and get a ballpark figure re how much  is increased fuel used? The  best way wud b for flatmate to 'offer' a 'voluntary' larger contribution to any rent increase for this reason.otoh tho one could be off sick and be at home for that reason. whilst understandable from LL's angle, Im not sure its reasonable from a contractual point of view unless guarantees from tenants that they would b out of the home during the daytime was required before acquiring the tenancy.

Surelyallnameshavebeentakenbynow

I'd ask your landlord why you need the heating on in the daytime when it's still comfortable double-digits 'warm' outside.