Advice needed on how to split billls between tenants in a multi-tenanted property

Dublin32

Registered User
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Hello all,

My father has a house that is let to 5 seperate tenants. We are moving from a situation where the landlord has been paying the esb, gas etc(a crazy situation i know) to a situation where the tenants pay the bills.
All tenants share the same kitchen and bathroom facilities.The tenants are happy to pay their fair share of the bills, once a system is put in place that fairly splits the bills amongst them. I have a case pending with the PRTB for one tenant for rent arrears and overholding so i know he wont pay his share. And he is the one that leaves on emersion, turns on gas all hours of day.But other tenants understandably wont want to pay his share.
Im looking for advice on ways to split bills fairly. One is to lower the bills by say putting a timer on the emersion. Is it possible to put seperate meters in each room for the electricity?
Helpful advice needed.

Thanks in advance.
 
I don't see how this can be done fairly, that is the problem with having individual tenants rather than letting the property as a unit. How about the landlord pay the beligerent tenant's share at say 2/6 of the bills and each of the four other tenants pay 1/6 each. Based on previous usage it might be helpful to inform the tenant's of how much they will probably be paying. I'm amazed the tenants are agreeable to paying the utilities if up to now they didn't?

What exactly is the progress on getting the tenant out? Landlords myself included would be interested in how you are getting on with the situation.
 
Back in the good old bed-sitter days, coin operated meters for electricity and gas (UK) were common as were timer-switches for common areas (stairs, landings, exterior lights, etc.).

One suggestion might be to put coin-operated meters on the high-consumption items (immersion, drier, electric cooker, heating, etc) and timer-switches everywhere else except the bed-rooms although this arrangement would not prevent someone using an electric fan-heater for example in a bed-room.
 
I forgot about those meters Mathepac. Back to the student days of whether we'll have heat or light or food. I know one house where they always opted for the beer :)
 
There is no 'fair' way to split them. Presumbably the bills are still in the landords name?
If they are in one tenants name (like in a normal houseshare of friends) then that tenant has the account with the ESB, etc. and they must collect the money from the others.

Otherwise, just ring up the Gas and ESB - and ask them to give you an average per year over the past two years. Then divvy it up into 5 and get that off the tenants, pro rata over the year.

There is absolutely no point in going down the route of individual bills or you'd have all this: 'she watches the TV all the time, so she should pay more'. Or 'I wasn't here for 3 weeks last month' type of thing.
Yes it may cost more one month than then next but if your averages are right then it should work out more or less over the year.

It's not a crazy thing for a landlord to be responsible for their own bills, if it's separate rooms let to strangers. If there are not individual flats or meters then the heat, ESB is 'included' in the rent.
If the house was subdivided into flats into be different.
 
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