Thinking it’s weird for kids to pay parents rent

[User788889]

My friend has a daughter (17) she charges rent. My family did the same to me growing up? Am I the only one who think it’s setting your kids up for failure and greedy to charge your kids for staying in their childhood home. I’d want my kids to be able to afford their own place not make it harder for them. Only thing I would do was pretend to and then give it all back to them…

I think it’s strange not to charge rent.

imagine you have your first full time job. If you are living independently, that first check is going to practically disappear towards rent and other necessities. If you live with parents who don’t charge rent, you find yourself with a ridiculous amount of disposable income.

Without the strain of real bills to pay, the young adult doesn’t get the harsh life lesson that will force them to start saving and teach them to spend wisely.

so yes, I would put the “rent” into a savings account because I can afford to save for my child. I would still charge them rent because I think it’s in their best interest to learn to live on a budget.

I charged DD a nominal rent and also went through the household expenses with her. It meant that whilst many of her cohort at Uni found themselves overdrawn, DD never was. Shielding adult DC from the reality of the cost of running a home does them no favours IMO.

😂 😂 😂 😂 😂

My sister wishes she had a mortgage, she's paying council rent. And just would be overdrawn every month if her 21yo wasn't contributing (who works full time and earns more than her) . She has to pay more rent, more council tax. Coats are higher, and income is lower, what with no child support supplementing her income .

So like let's pretend before he hit 18. She earned £1000, and got £100 child benefit. Total if £1100.
Her low income meant rent was £100, council tax £75. Total £175

So she was paying £175/£1000 to rent and CT.

Now he's bringing in £1500 extra to household.

Her rent has gone up to £500, council tax £100. Total of £600. Her income dropped to £1000.

So now she has to pay £600/£1000.

So yes, he has to contribute!!

This isn’t massively relevant to the discussion but what will she do when he moves out?

also sorry to edit- but I’ve realised you’re the same poster who said your sisters council rent went up when her child started working- can you explain what you mean by this? Rent charged doesn’t change based on age of occupants

My son earns £1900 a month and I charge him £200 a month. I think that is extremely reasonable. I only wanted him to contribute to the utilities as they have risen so much. If anyone thinks that is being mean to him then I’d love to know why.

I don’t believe in taking half of a kid’s paper round or Saturday job etc. but a grown adult who has a full time job, of course they should contribute something rather than nothing. They should insist on it themselves.

I cannot imagine charging a SEVENTEEN year old rent.

My parents rule was if you are an adult child, back at home and working you should pay “housekeeping” which was a contribution towards living costs (mortgage, bills, food, utilities, cleaning and laundy products.)

To put in context my brother was giving my mom £125 housekeeping per month in 2008 which I think is fine. When he was a student he paid nothing.

Agreed.

Her rent will go down. And her council tax will go down back to what it was. She'll be £100 " down" as no child benefit . But won't need to feed and clothe a child. So will be fine.

Also she can bud for a smaller (and cheaper) property too, as she won't need the second bedroom.

"A parent is paying the bills anyway"..... you do realise that things like electricity and food costs are not static, and that they increase the more people are using them?

This… all of this!

Yes it absolutely does. You have another working adult there, you get charged higher rent.

A work colleague in their early 20s, making 28k a year, lives at home and pays nothing. They cannot work a washing machine and have no idea how much a food shop or monthly electro bill costs. They were horrified that when I get paid 1/2 my wages automatically goes to the joint account to pay for household bills/shopping etc. She genuinely assumed everyone had the ability like her to book holidays all the time, and that it was normal to have your entire income as leisure money.

It's worrying. Her parents are setting her up for massive, massive failures.

You are making it harder for them by teaching them to be entitled freeloaders. Maybe they'll stay forever. Have fun feeding and housing a 40 year old who out earns you 🤷‍♀️

My 18 year old pays us money for his keep. He pays £65 a week and still has a lot more disposable income than we do.

I have worked in social housing for 20
years and part of my role is setting the rent for hundreds of thousands of properties - I can assure you this is not the case.

there is a legally governed rent formula that dictates rent. It is determined by the area and size of property, not who lives there.

the only impact of occupancy is the bedroom tax which is of course irrelevant when you have more occupants

I don’t think they do realise no. 🤷‍♀️

I don’t know about anyone else but if my son is away my food shop and my heating bill usage goes down! 🤔

Thank you for posting this.

I’ve had a bad week with ruminating on my past and where things haven’t panned out how I thought or hoped. Posts like this make people feel like utter shit. If somebody wasn’t in the right headspace, this could really tip them over the edge.

I’d suggest not to read this thread. Don’t stand to close to fire if you don’t want to be burnt. I'm always curious why someone starts up a thread for thoughts/ideas etc. and as soon as they are disagreed with it becomes an argument. This was never the case. I didn't realise we were only to read the posts that were from people who we agreed with, that is not the idea of a forum.
Plus I really don't understand the fire bit but just so you know it's 'too' close to the fire!

Yes because mummy saving up for then on the quiet is really going to teach them the value of money isn't it ??
Anyway you look do you and let those who.are less privileged than you do.whatever including charging their adult children rent.

Yes it does. They look at the household income of ALL adults living at the address and decide rents that way.

So if the household income went from £1000 pcm to £3000 (yours + adult son) they'd charge you more.

I would hope adult children would instinctively want to make their contribution to their immediate community (family).

I think in some circumstances it’s reasonable. I started earning when I was 20 and my parents out of the blue told me that they thought it was fair that I should pay. They didn’t need the money and I felt rejected that my home was now a financial transaction. I moved out, which also caused difficulties. Part of the problem was that they’d not let me go to university and had required me to train for a career that I very much didn’t want to do.

It’s not ‘rent’ it’s paying their own way in the world, or at least, a little toward it.
My 19 year old gives us £200 per month. This probably covers his food for the month - we certainly don’t profit from him.
He is very good with money and saves/invests most of it.
He has no debt and thousands in various savings and investments.
I’m certainly not worried that we’re hindering his financial future.

I suspect what pps mean - they lose a proportion or all rent allowance recalculated on increased household income, rather than actual rent charged being increased.

I agree it’s not helpful. She’ll be getting into spending habits - nails, beauty, meals out, holidays, city breaks, car loan that just aren’t sustainable with household expenses.
If they genuinely don’t need money save it for her.