Fair division of rent in student house with different sized rooms?

[LindorDoubleChoc]

This is a Victorian terraced house with 3 double bedrooms upstairs, 1 box room, and 1 double bedroom on the ground floor (it would be the front living room in a traditional family living arrangement).

What percentage of rent do you think is fair for each room?

Just to recap - 3 double bedrooms upstairs, 1 double bedroom downstairs, 1 box room.

Obviously a bit late now, but for others reading, or talking about it with their students, it really helps if the group have talked about this beforehand.

As I do have sympathy for the students who have agreed to pay £170pw, that are now being told "Oh, you need to pay more", even though a box room tenant should clearly pay quite a lot less from someone with a double room.

All the options need to be laid out first, and often someone will be happy to have the cheaper / smaller room, but if not then everyone needs to agree to names out of a hat, and agree if that changes each term or - if staying in the house a 2nd year - if the person in the box room gets a guaranteed double the next year, or whatever.

Too late now but we discussed how much rent per room discounted for the small one and the other "worst option". Then we picked out of hat for who chose their to 1st/2nd etc.

Therefore everyone was invested that the leaser rooms had lower rent.

Absolutely the lesser rooms are cheaper.

If they are adamant that all rooms are the same then those with the lesser rooms swap with the 'best" rooms half way through.

I bet all of a sudden they don't want to pay the same for the lesser rooms.

In a 7-bedroom house, the person on the ground floor needs to either have a discount or be the most social and the least likely to be disturbed by everyone else staggering back from the pub pissed or having dozens of folk round for pres...

If you decide the box room pays less make sure the contract states that with the landlord- we did this and the guy with the bigger room never paid the extra he agreed to and the one with the box room lost her deposit to cover the shortfall

If utilities are included in rent then why should box room occupant pay lots less than everyone else? They are presumably going to shower and cook and be heated as much as every other occupant.

There should definitely be a difference in price though.
If you took it to extremes you could argue that the electricity and heating costs for a much smaller room could well be lower, certainly heating.

Students generally keep most of their belongings in their room, and spend a lot of time in their rooms too. They will probably have to have a single bed rather than a double bed, and may not be able to fit in a computer desk, etc as well as furniture.

The price difference needs to take all of this into account.

There needs to be an incentive to encourage someone to have the box room.

If the ground floor room is the same size as the other double rooms I don't think they need to necessarily have a lower rent particularly. It is often the case they are the same cost as other rooms of the same size ime. Certainly dd didn't get a discount in the two occasions she had a grown floor bedroom in her student houses

It is being proposed that

By who?

Is it only the box room person and the downstairs person who are unhappy? Have the rooms already been decided without any discussion about price splitting?