Money Moral Dilemma: My housemate has a bigger room - how should we split the rent?

RichardLP · 10 October 2018 at 8:27AM

Pixie5740 wrote: »

This week's money saver says....

That sounds like two people signing a single contract to me otherwise it would say, "I signed a new contract," or "we signed new contracts."

It depends on how much larger the other room is and if it comes with an en suite or some other significant feature that this week's money saver's room does not have.

This week's money saver and the flatmate could continue to split the rent as they have done in the past and swap rooms for the same time period. Alternatively the flatmate could propose what he thinks is fair and then the OP could propose tossing a coin for the larger room.

I am also going to assume it is a single contract and you have joint responsibility for payment.

In which case you each write down on a piece of paper the percentage of the total rent you would be prepared to pay for the larger room, (say 60%?). The person with the highest percentage gets the larger room and pays the percentage they promised.

koru · 10 October 2018 at 9:33AM

Hold an auction. Either one-off bids, as RichardLP suggests, or just keep bidding for the better room until one person stops bidding.

fatrab · 10 October 2018 at 9:33AM

As mentioned earlier, you're not paying for just the room, it's the whole house you need to consider. If you've got, say, 8sqft less than you're housemate I think it's imperceptible in the grand scale of things if all other aspects are equally shared - so 50:50 would be fair. If your housemate ever moves on then you get the big room and the next guy or gal gets the smaller one.

If the other room was twice the size of yours and had an en suite then you'd have grounds to argue but without more info it's hard to give an informed, sensible answer.

[Deleted User] · 10 October 2018 at 9:36AM

Knock down all the internal walls and just have one massive room.

Then just split the rent equally.

REJP · 10 October 2018 at 10:43AM

Presumably the larger room costs more to heat and clean. Do you split heating and electricity costs equally? If so, discuss this before signing an equal rents contract next time.
Really boils down to common sense doesn't it? Think the value of friendship before saying something which might escalate into bitterness between you and your housemate.

chris5100 · 10 October 2018 at 11:30AM

I did this when I shared a house in London.

Work out total square metres, including garage/parking space plus garden space that you share. This is easier in London where gardens are 10SQM, if outside or having a massive garden, maybe price garden at £100 of rent and then calculate the indoor space on Rent - £100

Work out percentage of shared space and rooms for rent of £1500 pcm for 60SQM of space is £25 SQM
Shared space including drive space/garden = 35QM = £875 so £437.50 each
IE Room 1 = 10SQM = £250 room + £437.50 shared = £687.50 rounded to £700
Room 2 = 15 SQM £375 + £437.50 shared = £812.50 rounded to £800

If there is a parking space and one of you uses this factor that in as a cost, unless of course on street parking is free or if there is a permit zone offer to cover cost of guest permits for your room mates friends or pay a premium for the drive (worth a £1000+ year in London!!! - based on renting drive out on a parking app).

Also bare in mind any dead space in a bed room such as boiler/water storage that might be unusable

jeanmd · 10 October 2018 at 1:01PM

I'd be more inclined to ask if the other housemate was there first. As they seem to have separate contracts could the housemate be paying for the smaller room, but moved over to the larger before the the posting tenant moved in. Otherwise, I'd go on square foot.

LesD · 10 October 2018 at 9:41PM

Size isn't everything!!!

Benzo4 · 11 October 2018 at 6:23AM

I had this exact situation with a housemate of three years, the flat itself was large and we definitely wanted it regardless of the room sizes, but we couldn't decide who got the bigger room.

We both had legitimate reasons, neither of us wanted to pay more, and both rooms had Doubles (but one was twice the size). In the end, we flipped a coin and decided to swap after 6 months (based on a 1 year lease).

We stayed in the house for nearly 3 years and swapped back and fourth a further two times - a great opportunity to have a clean and a clear out. It was made easier by the fact we had a lot of space elsewhere in the flat to facilitate the shuffling of boxes.

Pixie5740 · 11 October 2018 at 7:26AM

jonnygee2 wrote: »

True, but that doesn't explain how the OP didn't actually know what rent the other person was paying?

Maybe this week's money saver isn't very good at maths and didn't realise (s)he was paying half otherwise why would the flatmate consider paying something different to what is stated in his/her own personal contract? It's all a bit odd.

PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING

Money Moral Dilemma: My housemate has a bigger room - how should we split the rent?

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free