Reasonable rent for adult son

[FancyFran]

I would like to get an idea of a reasonable rent to charge DS (24) when he moves back from London in the summer. He has asked to move back in to facilitate saving for a house . He has been gone for two years. He earns above average wages and has no debt other than a student loan. We are Southern based. He works from home 3 out of 5 days with £320 travel costs pm. He is an athlete and eats like a horse. I asked for £300-400 a month. He thought that too much. I paid £100 pm in the early eighties. Advice/ averages? My friends don't have dc at home.

Wish him luck finding a room in pleasant house for £400.

£300 sounds fine for rent and bills. He then needs to buy his own food as I bet he can spend about £80 to £100 a week on food if he is in serious training
Sort out a cupboard for his food in the kitchen and a shelf in the fridge

Show him the bills so he has a sense of how much living in the house costs.

Someone said it's acceptable to charge them 25% of their take home pay to live at home. That seems reasonable and still enables a decent amount to be saved every month!

Hard to say without answering the following questions:

Is he expecting you to buy and cook all food for him? Is he expecting his washing done? His sheets and towels washed and changed? And exactly how much does he earn? What was he paying in rent before now?

I’m assuming he is coming back as a ‘son’ and you will be doing all the above. Based on predicted food costs alone, I think your rate is fine. Add in electricity and internet (and lunches) for 3/5 days of WFH, and it is generous.

You son will think any amount more than zero is expensive, as he is used to getting all of this at your house for free. Don’t let you subsidise him. I understand you may not want to make a profit off him (or you may be ok with it! Your choice!) But you should NOT be losing money by him being back at home when he earns above-average wages.

And before you get to soft of heart, think of your pension. Can you afford to subsidise your son, rather than put that money into your pension? I strongly doubt it.

After £300-400 rent he would be approximately £900 better off per month.

Depends how good a saver he is and how quick you want him to move out.

Good saver= charge next to no rent, only what you need
Bad saver= charge market rent, tell him you are putting most of it aside to give as a lump sum towards his own place.

I mean do you want to facilitate him getting on the property ladder?

do you need money?

if no then charge him his costs alone

charge him some gas/electric and tell him to buy his own food?

I don’t think you should look to profit from the situation

We take 12% of our sons take home pay. Helps us and enables him to save by living at home. By taking a percentage rather than a fixed amount we felt that would be fairer to all kids when their time comes, as they wont all earn the same. Food is dearer now and the elec and gas are extortionate. I think if youre in the south and your son is earning a good salary you are being generous. Our boy earns £20,000 a year and we are in the north.

If he is saving I’d just cover my costs not profit from him

getting him to buy his own food

20% of take home.

If he’s moving in to save I would take the minimum that you actuall6 need to facilitate him moving out quicker .Do you need the money ? If not why not just get him to buy food .

It’s best to only take or keep the increase in costs that he causes by living with you. You don’t want to become dependent on his income. I have friend this happened to. She is now 70 and her DS still lives with her at 28. He wants to move out, but she insists he stay because she can’t afford to keep her home without his wage coming in. So she’s now making much ado about her health and how he needs to be caring for her in her old age, how he can’t move away and abandon her etc etc. I don’t agree with what she is doing at all, but her situation is pretty desperate and I can empathise with how it was a slow process of her becoming less financially independent and now is actually financially dependent on her son.

Whatever your increased costs are?
25% discount lost on council tax assuming you currently live alone, increase in bills (mostly water bill, which may increase by 50%?), that's about all I can think of as everything else would not be an increased cost for you, bit of electric for an extra wash a week.

If he buys and cooks his own food then I can't see whether it matters how much or little he eats. I guess it's more efficient to share the milk costs.

My DS earns an average wage.

He gives me a minimum of £300 a month, buys all his own food (and cooks it / clears up), pays for his own phone contract and his own subscriptions eg Netflix and Amazon Prime which I am welcome to use, and pays for his sports hobby / social life. He saves money on cabs by walking miles.

He has managed to save some money towards moving out in March into a houseshare with a friend (as part of a bigger group).

Meanwhile he hoovers and does the bins. I do his laundry. That's a quid pro quo. He made Christmas dinner and washed up. I'll miss him when he goes.

One of the posters of a similar question said they took rent and saved it for them for when they moved out. If you can afford that would be good? What was your son expecting to pay? Also just as your DS had a tenancy agreement I would drawn up
some kind of agreement that sets out expectations. Cleaning up after himself, cooking, food, washing etc.

We worked on a quarter of income as reasonable rent and board. It was that proportion for my parents to their parents, from me to my parents and from our adult DC to us.

That's vastly less than commercial rent and board would be and your DS should be able to save a good amount at that rate.

Son will eat £200 of food per month. He is a bit tight! He has always worked from 14 and funded his high end car at 19. I earn a large salary but need to take a leave of absence which will be unpaid. I might not return to full time work if my treatment is unsuccessful. I do feel he is taking the mick. We are moving to a new home next month. Our costs will increase.

If food is going to be your only significant increase in costs when he is at home how about saying he has to feed himself and then, after that and his travel costs, get him to save at least 50% of his take home pay in order to facilitate his moving on asap. Doing own laundry and cleaning his room/ bathroom is of course a basic non negotiable.

You say your costs will increase when you move but they would do anyway regardless of his presence so I’m not sure it’s fair to land that one on him. I think your main concern is to ensure he really does save as much as possible

Interesting. Our adult son is in a similar situation. He has a job beginning the September after he graduates next year. He can commute to it from home so he wants to live at home for the first 6-12 months. We have no intention of charging him rent. The conditions we have set are:

He saves for his future home rent.
He participates in the running of our home. Doing some of the laundry, cooking some of the meals for the family if he's eating with us, doing some of the shopping etc, just as he would in his own home.

It has always been the case for all our dc once they reached 17 or so, that they can come and go as they wish, just let me know by mid-afternoon if they're in or out for supper, let me know if they're staying out overnight and where, and message me to let me know they're home if they arrive after we've gone to bed. And pay for the carpet cleaning if they or their friends throw up or spill food on it.

I see no reason to change these conditions. I'm happy to have them at home. They've generally been happy with the conditions. If I don't need the income to keep the home going, why should I make it harder for them to save for their future home?

Sorry, missed that update. Your circumstances are different, as are his food needs and attitude. He does need to make a financial contribution to the household.

If you need the money, you need the money.

It's not my style to take money off my kids unless it's to cover the costs they themselves bring (so a house move and leave of absence wouldn't come under that for me, unless I was otherwise going to get a lodger). But I can afford to take that position. That's why I would just charge for their actual costs: council yax if I lost the single person discount (otherwise it's not an increase in costs), water, small amount of electric. Gas stays the same.

Why can't he buy his food and feed himself? Surely he won't be eating with you all the time?

Maybe you should get a lodger after your son moves out, if you need the money and are happy to share the house?

I don't need a lodger and have a DH. Son is a economics professional. In all honesty I think he expected me to say live for free. We did that before, his father and I got fed up with it hence his move. His new salary is not quite at higher rate tax payer.

I don't believe in charging kids rent unless their moving in causes you to lose housing benefit. Your mortgage is the same, whether your son is there or not and it isn't his responsibility to make up the shortfall due to you being unable to work. Unless his being there means you can't claim state support.
I would expect him to pay for the increased food costs and any additional utilities costs but I wouldn't want to profit from my adult child living at home.
My DS moved home about 18 months ago to save a deposit - I charged £50 per week to go towards his food and he has managed to save his deposit and completes on a flat in January.
The point is to help him and for him to move out asap.

£50 a week is 20% for my son. Dress it up how you want but 20% will only cover food and additional washing costs. No one is making a profit from £50 a week. I think 20% is reasonable - it’s not rent - it’s for food etc.