First off campus apartment - How to pay/share expenses with roommates

Parent Cafe
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<p>No landlord would be interested in having separte leases, and it would certainly be easier if they could just get one check. I would prefer if I didn’t get stuck with another kid’s rent if he/she should withdraw from the school for personal or medical reason. The landlord is at least protected by a lease, as another renter’s parent, there is no protection.</p>

<p>We don’t always get what we want, there is no clear cut what is the norm when it comes to contract, it depends on supply/demand, and also what you have to give to the landlord in return for certain concessions.</p>

22

<p>This made my eyebrows raise–D1 rented a house for a year with 4 other people with whom she worked. They had spent the previous year in the same training program. One trusting soul had a credit card account and issued credit cards to each roommate. The cards were to be used to charge for house expenses (food, utilities, cable bill, whatever.) and at the end of the month, the roommates split that bill. </p>

<p>It made it easy to keep track of things and the kids were all close. But still…</p>

23

<p>Wow, a wealth of great ideas here! According to my son and his friends, it is pretty common in their college town for landlords to deduct the rent directly from a bank account. Unfortunately, it does take away the power of “show me the money before I write the rent check”. My understanding is that they may have to do the same for their utilities and cable to avoid paying some kind of deposit, since none of them have any kind of credit rating.</p>

<p>The boys have put down a deposit on a very popular complex in town, with each of their parents listed as cosigners. (There is one apartment complex that advertises itself as a transition from dorms that does bill each tenant separately, but apparently the apartments aren’t nearly as nice and are much more expensive than the one the boys have applied for.)</p>

<p>I’m wondering how a bank account works with three (non-related) people. Would it come with one checkbook and 3 debit cards? (Would there be a reason to have a debit card at all if it is just for paying bills?) Hopefully, they could open a non-fee account and then agree to put x-amount of money in each month to cover rent, utilities, water&garbage, & internet? I personally prefer the idea of looking at a bill before paying it, to make them more aware of water usage, heating & electricity costs, etc.</p>

<p>My son would be the odd one out, as being the only Chase account holder, so they’ll probably want to do a Wells Fargo account. I imagine the other boys’ parents must have Wells Fargo accounts, which would make it easy for them to transfer funds. I guess I would have to transfer money to my son’s account who could then write a check to deposit in their joint Wells Fargo account? I don’t know think any of them have PayPal accounts.</p>

<p>I appreciate all of the suggestions and checklists to consider. I know the cleaning deposit will be significant. It’s interesting to me that the landlord didn’t want first and last month’s rent, just a security deposit equivalent to the last month’s rent. </p>

<p>We had a big problem when my son moved out of his freshman apartment style dorm last year. Two of the four boys moved out a few days early, so all of the cleaning (bathroom, kitchen, living area) was left to my son and his one remaining roommate (and their parents). If we hadn’t cleaned, all four boys would have been billed a cleaning fee by the housing department. This year he is living with six boys in an apartment-style dorm, so I told him the boys need to come to some kind of agreement so everyone shares the clean up!</p>

<p>This is going to be uncharted territory for guys who are used to having their housing bills paid in advance by their parents. I know it is a part of growing up, but having all of our credit ratings involved (by cosigning) is worrisome. At the risk of being helicopter-ish, I feel like I’d want an online password to their joint account, just to make sure there are adequate funds in the account come debit time.</p>

<p>Please keep the suggestions coming!</p>

24

<p>S is finishing up his first off campus year and chose to stay in the same place next year. Most of the housing in his college town have individual contracts, regardless if it is a 2, 3, or 4 bedroom. Each kid has their own contract and pays their own rent. That way, if one doesn’t pay or is dismissed from school at semester, etc, it does not effect the other kids.</p>

<p>It has worked out very well.</p>

25

<p>The property management company that manages my D’s apartment building used to accept separate checks, but they will not anymore. They manage 50+ apartment buildings in her college town and changed that policy for all of them. From what my D tells me, almost none of her friends can pay rent with separate checks anymore.</p>

<p>It’s worked out okay for my D. She and her roommate have lived together for 3 years so that’s been a stable arrangement for them. My D pays the rent (she’s more organized and on top of deadlines than her roommate), and then her roommate gives D a check for her half of the rent. Occasionally it’s well into the month before D can get the check, but it’s never really a matter of “if” she’ll get it… so it hasn’t been a problem. We are lucky too because her roommate’s parents are very reliable people – if there was ever a problem they would get it covered asap.</p>

<p>They used to share groceries, but stopped that eventually because of different shopping and eating habits.</p>

26

<p>You might want to see the following form from UCLA <a href=“http://www.studentlegal.ucla.edu/Forms/RMMATEK1.pdf[/url]”>http://www.studentlegal.ucla.edu/Forms/RMMATEK1.pdf&lt;/a&gt; to help define responsibilities. The only issue I ever had will roommates was the phone bill. Long before cell phones.</p>

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<p>jgotteach–most bills paid online with my kids and they transfer money to each other online. Both have checking accounts…but D2 doesn’t even have printed checks! It’s a different world out there.</p>

28

<p>My S will live in an apartment off campus with 3 roommates next year. Each kid has his own contract, puts down his own deposit and will pay for his portion of rent. I have not decided whether to set up a bill pay myself or transfer money to my S and have him be accountable for paying the rent on time. There is a monthly utility bill and they will have to figure out how to pay it.</p>

29

<p>I like the idea of the separate account however they will have to check around to find a bank that will put three names on an account. If the parents are actually paying for this and you have the funds to do so, why not see if you each can prepay your share of your child’s rent a semester at a time instead of the automatic withdrawals. That way you won’t have to mess around with opening a separate checking account, and I can’t imagine a landlord not agreeing to this idea as he would get his money earlier. Maybe you can even ask for a pay in advance discount.</p>

30

<p>It sounds like ideally, one reliable person takes charge of making sure all of the bills are covered, one way or another. I’m not sure which of the three boys this would be. Most of his friends were so laid back about even finding an apartment for next year. At my urging, DS got them out looking where they were “surprised” to see the competition for the popular apartments. (sigh) I think their procrastination was exacerbated by the fact that their college doesn’t hold their off-campus housing fair until next month.</p>

<p>Probably a good first step would be for one of them to call Wells Fargo to see if it is even possible to set up an account with three people. I wish there was an option of separate checks, but this seems to be more of a landlords’ market. </p>

<p>The UCLA contract looks interesting. I’ll print it up and give it to my son. The part about payments due to particular individuals looks promising. If they decide to go with the lead bill payer idea, they can establish a date by which the checks have to be written to one another. They might not go for putting the chores in writing, however!</p>

<p>Although I like the idea of paying rent a couple of months in advance, I don’t know if it would go over with the other parents. </p>

<p>Unfortunately, he and his friends tend to be pretty casual about bill splitting. He says when they share a restaurant bill with just the guys, they each throw in the same amount of money, regardless of who ordered what.</p>