Fair Rent Division - Single guy and couple in a two bed apartment

elmicko

The (real life) scenario plays out as follows.
A single guy is looking for someone to share a two bed apartment with. His mate suggests that he could move in along with his girlfriend. The mate simplistically thinks 'two rooms', split the rent 50/50 (i.e. single guy pays 50% and the couple pay 50%) and they would split the bills three ways.
The single guy wants the ensuite, but the couple automatically think, 'we should get that because there are two of us'.
To complete the picture, the bedrooms are a similar size, with the ensuite room being slighty bigger.
So, what is the fair rent split? (Couple first) 50/50, 60/40, 67/33.


A second, more difficult scenario: there are more than two rooms. Lets just take a four bed house that costs 1000 per month. There is a master bedroom (300), two decent rooms (250 each) and a box room (200).
Now lets assume that any of the people in the above rooms decide to take in their other half (assuming the rest are cool with it). What premium should the couple pay? Maybe 50 towards the bills? Any suggestions?

hobochris

It should either go on room size or number of people in the house in total.

In the first case Id say to the couple, if you want the en suite your pay more rent. 60/40 etc..

In the second case divide up per room seems fine. bills should be split that same way. so if your room rent is 40% of the entire rent when a bill comes in you pay 40% of the bill as well.

elmicko

I'm not sure what you mean by "It should either go on room size or number of people in the house in total.".

I'll put it to you this way, forget the en suite, let's just say there are two equally sized rooms and one shared bathroom. How would you divide the rent out between a couple and individual in that scenario?

As for your suggestion of bills being paid proportionate to the rent, I hadn't even thought of that. I would have assumed that it would be split by all the people, regardless of what room they're in. Personally, I think that your proportionate bill split suggestion is a bit unfair.

helimachoptor

I would go for rent in the first scenario of 60/40 but bills at 33% each.

jdivision

Victor has previously posted a sticky thread on this called The Equitable Houseshare thatI think works well and fairly.

meglome

I used Victors formula and it came out 430, 335, 335, based on the bedroom sizes. We settled on 400, 350, 350 and all bills divided evenly.

elmicko

I have to admit, I like Victor's formula. I can understand people not liking it as it's, for the want of a better word, anal.

Agent J

Split the bills evenly is the fairest. I do not see any reasonable logic for doing otherwise

The rent should come down to generally a 60/40 or 66/33 split between the couple and the single depending on how good the rooms are.

Victor

elmicko wrote: »

I have to admit, I like Victor's formula. I can understand people not liking it as it's, for the want of a better word, anal.

The formula is strict, but you can use any variation you want.