Housemate’s boyfriend moving in-split rent?

[Lampyshady]

I live in a flatshare with 3 others. One of the girls has a much bigger room and an en-suite and pays a bit more rent and the other 3 of us share a bathroom and pay a bit less. Girl with big room has asked if her boyfriend can move in and share her room for about 6 months, and said we’d split the bills by 5. We all said we’d think about it. He’s here a lot anyway and has been going through a very hard time and we get on well so it wouldn’t be so bad-and we’d still be sharing a bathroom between 3 so it wouldn’t add to bathroom waiting times.
We suggested that he should pay rent and the girlfriend said oh he’s going to pay half of my rent so it’s fair. I think this is unreasonable, since there will be 5 of us in the house/using the kitchen etc so I think the rent should be split by 5 and the rent should be lowered for the rest of us too as a result of having one more flatmate.
I think it’s unfair that they will get to live in a nice house, in a big room in an expensive city for half the market rate, with the convenience of having their partner with them, while the rest of us pay nearly double and have the inconvenience of living with more people.
Their argument is that the rent is per room and it is only 1 room they are renting so as long as that room is paid for it’s none of our business/their finances are up to them.
Who is being unreasonable? And is this even legal-we weren’t planning on telling the landlord he’s moved in because it’ll (probably) only be for a few months.

I would use the 'it isn't even legal' argument. And frankly what's in it for you? Nothing.

What possible reason would you have for saying yes unless there's a financial incentive? I presume there's a living room , kitchen etc which you're now going to be sharing with 4 other people rathe than three.

Tell her he contributes or you say no.

Just tell the landlord and let the landlord decide.

Tell the LL. If he finds out in another way you will end up in trouble. Depending on their license, insurance etc. you could get them into serious trouble.

YANBU to want a rent reduction but how much you push it depends on how much you value a happy household.

why should the rent be split by 5 if he doesn't have his own room? He's sharing a room with his GF (which y'all agreed to) and he's splitting utilities.

You need to tell the landlord as breaks your tenancy. You no reason to agree to this. The others three and you decide if you want it if landlord agrees

Do you have shared kitchen, living room etc? If so he needs to contribute to rent.

You still have to share the kitchen - and do you all share a lounge too?

I think overall yabu, they have a valid point that they are sharing a room.
Your utilities will be less.
Perhaps he could put an extra few quid in the pot in top to cover extra person in the kitchen, but not fair to expect to divide the rent by 5 in this circumstance.

I don’t think the rent should be split 5 ways given they are sharing a room but he should pay a nominal sum to balance you now living with an extra person.

This is totally up to your landlord tbh so I'd tell them and let them sort it out with your housemate.

There being 5 of you could mean they would need an HMO license so you and they could get in serious shit if you do this without telling them.

How much more is the rent of the bigger room? Is it considerably more than yours?

I'm not sure it's right for him to be paying the same as everyone else (he doesn't have his own room) but he should be paying more to compensate for the rest of you now having to share with an extra person.

I'm not really sure what the answer is TBH..

Are bills included in the rent?

So she's basically sub-letting her room. If the landlord finds out it could cause problems for all of you.

What happens about utility bills? Surely she's not expecting him to be allowed to pay half of her share of those?

If there's five of you living there seems fair to me that five of you split the rent equally and of course, the utility bills.

Sorry, just realised you're splitting the utility bills x 5.

I think the rent for the one rooms should be halved between them and then split 5 ways for the bills.

I think you should meet in the middle somewhere .
Let's say you all pay 400 each and she pays 500.
Under your proposals , it would be 2100/5 which would be 420 for each of them , or 840 for their room which is too high .
Equally, 500 for 2 people (not 1 and that's an extra person sharing the living space ) isn't fair either
I would suggest together they pay 600 so that the 3 others pay 33.33 less each and bills are lower because you have an extra person paying them
I think that's fair :)

I don't think the rent should be split 5 ways as she is already paying more for the bigger room which will now just be shared. However I think her rent should go up a bit as you all now have to share all the common areas with another person - can you all meet in the middle that way?

I think rent should be by room not split between you; you’re already going to save by splitting the bills. I look at it that they’re sharing the space of the room.

I think it should be split into 5 paying rent
It's not just the room he's using, it's water, gas, electricity he's using. Even in hotels it's per person, you don't share the cost of a room.

The BF is going to use heat, power, the washing machine, hot water, and presumably share food. He's also going to occupy and use the kitchen and sitting room; want space in the fridge; to use the stove; watch programs he likes on TV. You pay council tax, shared between 4.

All of that impacts on OP and the two housemates. OF COURSE he should be contributing financially to ALL the shared bills and expenses.

For his GF to imagine she will be the sole beneficiary of his contribution is completely wrong.

At the very least, your LL needs to be informed she is subletting in his property (most tenancy agreements explicitly forbid this).

Absolutely the landlord needs to be informed and grant permission for this. As others have said, she's sub-letting her room and profiting. It could compromise the insurance and letting laws and her boyfriend will need to sign a Tenancy contract agreement.

@iwishu

I think it should be split into 5 paying rent It's not just the room he's using, it's water, gas, electricity he's using. Even in hotels it's per person, you don't share the cost of a room.

Last few hotels I've stayed in have been per room not per person

Ooh we had this exact situation 20 years ago! Lovely flatmate with a lovely boyfriend we all got on with. He moved into her room - slightly different situation to yours as it was a small room with no en suite.

We let him move in rent free (but contribute to bills), as he was going through a tough time. However he later got a job and it did lead to some resentment that he still wasn't paying rent.

I wonder if you could do something in-between paying no rent and paying full rent. So you could split the rental into a) room and b) rest of house. There are 4 rooms and 5 of you will be sharing the rest of the house. This adds up to 9. So you could say that the couple each pay their share of "rest of house" but share their room cost, so they each pay 1.5/9 of the total cost. And the other three of you pay for your room + rest of house so you each pay 2/9 of total cost. So if the monthly rent was £900, the couple would pay £150 each (or however they want to split £300 between them) and the rest of you would pay £200 each. Or something like that. Could weight "room" and "house" a bit differently in the calculation. Also might depend how much more they are already paying for the room!

The other thing I would say is to think about the non-financial aspects. In our case it was generally fine and we all got on, but there was a bit of grumbling as the housemate + boyfriend did end up taking over the kitchen, the TV etc quite a bit and also leaving their stuff everywhere (partly because they were sharing a small room). Also once the boyfriend moved in, he never moved out of course, until we all went our separate ways! So once you're in the arrangement it's hard to get back out of it. Having said that we all generally got on fine and are still in touch now.

Good luck!

@Justleaveitblankthen

Absolutely the landlord needs to be informed and grant permission for this. As others have said, she's sub-letting her room and profiting. It could compromise the insurance and letting laws and her boyfriend will need to sign a Tenancy contract agreement.

This. She is subletting her room, that tends to not be allowed.

If it's not a big deal, her and her boyfriend can move out and find their own place surely?

I also agree with doing it all through the landlord. I definitely don’t think her argument of splitting her rent is fair.