Utilities for student accommodation

Iflooders · 4 May 2018 at 7:22AM

My son is due to move into a house in September with other students. The letting agency is offering to provide gas, elec, water and broadband for £16 a week to each student. He obviously has no idea how much they will use and whether this is a good deal. Have since come across companies that will arrange these independently of the letting agency. Not sure which route to go down so looking for advice, any experience of these companies?

agrinnall · 4 May 2018 at 9:24AM

We don't have any idea whether that's a good deal or not as you haven't told us how many students will be living in the property.

ceb1995 · 4 May 2018 at 10:05AM

Iflooders wrote: »

My son is due to move into a house in September with other students. The letting agency is offering to provide gas, elec, water and broadband for £16 a week to each student. He obviously has no idea how much they will use and whether this is a good deal. Have since come across companies that will arrange these independently of the letting agency. Not sure which route to go down so looking for advice, any experience of these companies?

The companies that offer that service tend to have a fee as part of it so they won't always be the best deal. Will that £16 have a fair use policy attached and how many people will that be for?

PasturesNew · 4 May 2018 at 10:11AM

It seems very pricey to me, imho if you're going to offer the utilities it should've been presented in the initial price as "bills included". However, it is a fixed amount, which makes it easier to budget and you know there are no problems when you leave re bills... if he signed up for that deal, when would the end date be? Would he end up paying nearly £70/month for bills on a student house if he were, say, in an accident and had to move home to be nursed?

The alternative is for a student to put their name to each bill - and potentially end up "stuffed" when others don't pay their bit and/or disappear into the night and drop out.

If he can afford £16/week .... then it would be one less thing on his mind. If he'd struggle to afford it, or is concerned that he'll be leaving the house a month before the end of the agreement and would still be paying that much even though he's not there .... then mull it over.

I'm not comfortable with it, myself, because it just seems too high .... on the other hand that fixed amount/week would be tempting and I might still go for it.

Lokolo · 4 May 2018 at 12:38PM

4 students for example. £16 a week each. That's around £270 a month.

Gas, Electric, Broadband and Water in my 3 bed detached house is £180 and that is with 3 adults living there and an additional partner living there for half a week.

I assume they are still all on the bills, and that if they go over an allowance they would be charged extra.

Iflooders · 4 May 2018 at 6:54PM

Fair point. There are 5 sharing the house.

agrinnall · 4 May 2018 at 9:51PM

£4000 a year is a hell of a lot to pay for utilities.

flashg67 · 4 May 2018 at 10:29PM

There seem to be quite a few companies doing this now but both my step daughters took theirs with split the bills. It worked out ok for them. I wouldn't expect one student to take ownership of all the bills and collect payments, so these schemes seem a good idea to me.
I thought they'd be paying too much, but it turned out they actually owed more after a year - typical students, lights/heating etc left on 24/7(and I get told off for our generation wrecking th e planet,,,!). (plus a broken thermostat that the LL took ages to fix)
They only chased each student for their share of the overspend. Worth budgeting for this too.

Dobbibill · 7 May 2018 at 9:38AM

It depends on a number of things.

Is the £16 affordable as it works out more expensive?
Do the students know each other and have become friends during their first year?

My DS lived in shared accomodation in years 2 & 3 at Uni and they all took a bill each - one had water, electric, gas, TV licence, BB. This meant they only transferred a very small amount to the people managing the higher bills like energy as they still had responsibility for the smaller ones themselves and were all in the same boat.
It worked well for them doing it themselves. On the flip side you don't want your son to get stung for other students shirking their responsibility.

Utilities for student accommodation

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