Money hacks How to set up and maintain a happy house-share

The main things people disagree on when they share a property are "cleaning, noise, bills and other people's other halves", says Matt Hutchinson, a director of the property-sharing website Spareroom.

- Sandra Haurant

Write an agreement

He suggests that you head off arguments by discussing how you want the household to operate and write up a document you can all agree on - and refer to in future if needed.

Think of all the elements that might cause problems and decide how you will handle them. This might include how you will divide up cleaning and other chores, who will be responsible for which of the big expenses, what counts as a household essential and what types of products you might decide to share, as well as when you all think is acceptable to turn on the heating.

Set up direct debits

If you are joint tenants, the rent is likely to be paid to the landlord by one lead tenant. They will also be the person who gets the deposit back at the end of the term.

Unless your rent includes utilities and council tax, you will also have those bills to cover.

"To make things simpler, try to set all the bill payments up to go out on the same day as the rent," Hutchinson says. This way, you know what everyone needs to pay for the month and money can be transferred to cover it quickly.

You can usually do this on your energy or wifi supplier's website.

Set up standing orders to ensure the housemates who cover the biggest costs are not out of pocket for long.

"We all pay our share to the lead tenant and then the lump sum comes out of his account," says Bethany Forster Adams, a teacher living in a house-share of five in London.

"Previously, we would send the money when we got paid, which for me was at the end of the month. But now we've set up automatic payments so that the lead tenant doesn't have to wait for the money to come through."

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