How should we split rent fairly in a four-bedroom student house?

[Kopfkino]

Can anyone give us some ideas of how to split the accommodation costs of a shared uni house.

House, 4 bedrooms;
1 large bedroom with ensuite (20m sq)
1 large bedroom (20m sq)
2 bedrooms (10 m sq each)

Shared kitchen/ diner, garden, bathroom

Rent is £3466 a month

Some differences of opinion of how this should be split including biggest room paying double!

Any ideas?

You could pay £400 less by taking a smaller room.

This is what my son and daughter did with all their uni house shares.

Every one pays the same, rooms drawn out of a hat.

Sometimes what looks like the biggest/best room on paper isn't. My son had the biggest room out of six in his 2nd year with a shower next door. However it was the only one on the ground floor and he lost loads of possessions in a burglary whereas everyone else was ok. It was also the coldest room and the one most affected from noise next door.

They'd have been better finding a house with more equal sized rooms. My foster son did this and they drew rooms out of a hat. It's the fairest way. They all paid the same. No ensuite but 2 shower rooms and a bathroom between 5.

Use market forces. If no one wants to pay £400 more for the biggest room then reduce the price (and raise the others) until it reaches a point where someone is prepared to pay the extra for the perceived benefit.

The idea that someone gets to pick a house with one lovely bedroom and four mix/not great ones then gets his group to subsidise his great room would put me off sharing with that person.

There’s a rent splitting website called splitwise where you put in the rent, number of people, size of rooms and communal space and it works it out. You can’t just have double rent for bigger rooms as everyone shares the kitchen diner, garden etc

There wasn’t a lot of choice. They got rejected at least 5 times when looking.

Last year my DC got the smallest room, a box room. It had no curtains and no drawers or wardrobe. He paid the same as the others in much larger rooms.

The others don’t want the largest room as they don’t want to pay the extra money. They’ve asked for the smaller ones.

FYI he asked me to ask around what others do.

I’m happy to give him a bit more money for a bigger room but there’s no way I’m paying £400 extra than his housemates when they didn’t last year.

does everyone have a preference for a room?

some students would be happy to pay more for a bigger room and ensuite whereas others would rather have and extra £300 in their pocket.

there needs to be agreement from everyone. So they should agree what each room is ‘worth’ relevant to the overall cost then pick names out of a hat.

When I was at uni we had one flat with significant differences in room size and we just all paid the same but drew names out a hat to decide who got each room. If the person who found the flat expected the best room for no extra money that would need to be agreed before signing as surely some people wouldn't have agreed that?

If they all paid the same last year, why don't they do the same this year?

I would allocate 40% of the rent for the shared spaces and split equally between the 4 tenants, then 60% of the rent for the rooms and split unequally, with the two larger rooms paying twice what the half size rooms pay. The result is that you divide the rent into 10 equal portions and allocate as follows:

Large room with en suite: 3/10 £1040
Large room without en suite: 3/10 £1040
Small room: 2/10 £693
Small room: 2/10 £693

The larger rooms paying more but not double. The en suite is thrown in as a freebie for your child who is doing all the organising.

I don’t think the difference should be more than £200, and the en suite is much more of an advantage than just a bigger room. I would do:

£1000
£866
£800
£800

If no one wants to pay £400 more for the biggest room then the price differential is too large. They just need to reduce the difference.

All priced the same, draw straws on who gets what.

In which case they need to give him the best room at no additional cost.

We had an identical set up 25 years ago, it was split £50 / £40 / £30 / £30 per week. It was me that paid the most, I definitely wanted a larger room and was happy to pay the extra tenner for my own bathroom!

We agreed the cost split before we decided who got which room.

In which case he says "hang on, we all paid the same last year even though I had the worst room, why are doing it differently this year?"

You ask people to bid for the best room. When that is worked out you then ask people to bid for the second best room and do on.

Yes, this. If it’s the same group of friends.

I’d do as someone else suggested and allocate eg 40% of the cost equally between everyone, then split the rest. It’s not fair for largest room to pay double but a few hundred more is reasonable for a much larger space. And they can pick rooms in the opposite order to how they were allocated last year - person who has the worst last year can choose first this year etc.

IF it is the same group sharing then this changes things and he should get the larger room at equal cost with perhaps £100 extra for the en suite. If it is a different group then last year’s arrangement isn’t relevant anymore.

My daughter took the smallest room to keep the peace and it turned out to be the cosiest in winter. I would suggest that some of the storage in the biggest rooms be allocated to those in the smallest if they have less to even it out as it's that which is the greatest drawback. I don't think the difference should be as much as £400 as the communal rooms are also part of it so the extra bedroom space isn't such a big deal though the ensuite is clearly a massive benefit. Sounds like they shoild have chosen a house with more even bedroom space.

All rooms the same price and pull names out of a hat for what order they select their room of choice.

I can't quite get my head round the lunatics who think that someone getting a 10sqm room should pay the same as someone in a 20sqm with ensuite!