AIBU by not thinking she shouldn't pay all her bills?

[TheKnightsThatSayNee]

My friend has a 6 month contract on a house share with 5 other women.
She is moving into a different house share due to very understandable circumstances (nothing that is anyone in the houses fault) but they won't be able to get anyone to take over her room because of it. She will have to pay two rents but the sticking point is the bills. They have internet/tv, gas, water and electric. The tv/internet and the water rates are fixed charges and the gas and electric is the usual pay for what you use.
What is reasonable for her to pay on the old house share?

How do they work out who is using what electricity and gas?

I can't see how it would be possible to accurately work that one out anyway, so it makes sense that the bills are going to be pretty much the same, just that if your friend gets her way, her housemates will be paying more.

They aren't going to need to heat the house any less because one person is missing, the pizzas or whatever they stick in the oven are still going to take the same amount of time to cook even though there is one less person sharing them, the lights are still going to be on despite the fact that there's one less person in the room.

All those things count as useage, and the others will have budgeted for sharing all those things with the 5 other people they entered into the contract with, not four.

So their bills won't go down by any significant amount, yet they will still have to pay more because of your friends choice. They might go down a little bit, but it's not going to be much.

Has your friend paid more than the others for usage in the past because she often stays there when they don't?

the criminal neighbours are not the fault of the landlord. Horrible, I agree - but nothing to do with the contract.

it sounds like the mice are also not his fault.

none of this is the fault of the tenants. To answer the question; she pays the fixed bits but as the rest is 'pay for what you use' and she isn't using anything, she doesn't pay for that.

I would also be interested to know if it is all legal on the HMO front. If not, that IS the fault of the landlord and something needs to be done.

I'd risk court before I paid tbh.

I

Whoops! Posted too soon.

I'm another one for saying rent plus her share of the fixed bills, and nothing for the ones based on useage.

The job and oven will be on for one less person, one less person is washing themselves and their clothes. It's not like a family where one person leaving doesn't make much difference as in a shared house it's normal to do your coking and washing separately. Lights will be on less cos her room won't be used.

How do they work it out during holidays? When I flat shared we shared standing charges and whoever was there for say the 3 months of summer shared the usage for then, do they have this kind of arrangement?

I see your point about shared areas needing lighting heating but would that not be a tiny amount. The radiator could be turned off in her room. I'd have thought showers, oven, kettle ect would be the main costs.

At the moment they all pay equal amounts no matter who's there as it varies a lot.

I guess how much she pays depends on how much she likes her flat mates and if she wants to continue the friendship then.

Let him threaten court! A short term reduction, as a gesture of goodwill is the least he can do!

No-one would choose to live in a mouse infested house!

The ll should consider themselves lucky that the 5 tenants are not all moved into hotel accommodation at his/her expenses until he sorts it all out.

Plus it's nearly April, shouldn't be having much heating on at all from now. Light in shared rooms will be the minority cost compared to individual cooking, washing etc