Current Account for a Student House

Gall1987

Gall1987

Gall1987

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1 Jan 2009
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441
Hi,

I'm just after some advice as I'm sure they'll be plenty of people who have been, or who are in the same situation.

I'm moving in to a student house next year with five of my friends. Our bills aren't included in the rent, so we have decided that we're going to set up a basic bank account and each have a direct debit going in to it each week to help cover bills.

Does anyone know how many people you can have on current accounts and which bank would be best? Also, what would you say that the average cost of bills would be per person per week?

I appreciate any advice :)
 
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Which bills are you including? Gas? Electric? Phone? Broadband?

£25 a week is way too much. That would be about £6.5k a year which is madness. We pay about £1,200 a year for those 4 above for a 3 bed semi.
 
Gall1987 said:
Are bills aren't included in the rent
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I hope you're doing maths at uni :p

Also, this seems like a lot of hassle and also risky if you forget to close the account when you leave.

We just gave different bills to different people, e.g. person A gets Electric, when the electric bill comes they tell everyone how much it is, gather the money and pay off the bill.

And then the next year we didn't even bother doing that, we just put an envelope in the kitchen, whoever the last person to put money in the envelope was, then had the responsibility of paying the bill.
 
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Gall1987 said:
It'll be gas, electric, broadband and sky. Also anything else that I've missed off. We were thinking about £10-£15 per week.
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Gas/electric - £150 a month. This is over double our monthly Direct Debit for our house, but there are more of you, and if you all have your own room, own computer, etc, then it'll mount up.

Broadband - £30 a month if you fail hugely at shopping around.

Sky - I have no idea. £30 a month is it?

That's a total of £210 a month, or about £2,600 a year. £2,600/52/5 = £10 so the lower end of your budget is probably at the high end of reality.

Ooh, you didn't list phone, but given that you can get Sky, broadband and phone altogether for something like £50 a month (stabs in the dark on their website) I think you're still safe.
 
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vonhelmet said:
Gas/electric - £150 a month. This is over double our monthly Direct Debit for our house, but there are more of you, and if you all have your own room, own computer, etc, then it'll mount up.

Broadband - £30 a month if you fail hugely at shopping around.

Sky - I have no idea. £30 a month is it?

That's a total of £210 a month, or about £2,600 a year. £2,600/52/5 = £10 so the lower end of your budget is probably at the high end of reality.
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Cheers :)
 
vonhelmet said:
£25 a week is way too much
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I was just going on my bills, circa 450 a month, 2 bed flat, just me. Added on a bit as more people.

Looks like you've missed: tv licence, phone line, water (possibly included?), council tax, contents insurance?

Oh and it's you and five of your friends, so 6? Numbers can prob drop slightly from my original £25/vonhelmet's £10
 
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aspirins said:
I was just going on my bills, circa 450 a month, 2 bed flat, just me. Added on a bit as more people.

Looks like you've missed: tv licence, phone line, water (possibly included?), council tax, contents insurance?
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Water is usually included. TV licence may be paid by the landlord if they can't be arsed with getting the letters about how their tenants aren't paying it. The rest are a good shout, certainly.
 
So add another 120 a month for council tax, depending on banding. TV licence is 30 a month to begin with, contents say 20.

Extra 170 a month. Add vonhelmet's 210 = 4560 a year/52/6 = 15.

Your original guess was probably about right.
 
No council tax for students. Place im in with 2 other guys we each pay around £30-40 per month for bills so £10 a week seems reasonable for 5.
 
Salsa said:
No council tax for students.
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Contrary to popular belief, it's not actually that black & white.

No, the council don't hold students liable for council tax, but they may hold the landlord liable for it. And if he/she includes paying council tax in the small-print of the tenancy agreement, then legally you are still liable for it. Student or not. (Since it's an agreement between you and the landlord, and thus nothing to do with the council).
 
Thanks. With regards to the council tax, would we be best contacting the landlord regarding this, or the local council directly? We just want to try and get everything sorted well before September considering we get the keys in July.
 
Gall1987 said:
Thanks. With regards to the council tax, would we be best contacting the landlord regarding this, or the local council directly? We just want to try and get everything sorted well before September considering we get the keys in July.
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Ask the landlord, yeah. He can tell you what he's covering out of the rent.
 
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