Utility bills

Most of our shared housing is now offered all-inclusive of utility bills. This includes gas, water and electricity. All of the all-inclusive tenancies will be subject to a ‘fair usage’ clause. This simply means that although you are given a generous allowance to use, you will be required to cover the cost of additional spend.

Deposits with a Lead Tenant

Deposits in shared houses are registered as one deposit (even if paid by many individuals). This is because the group is one legal entity. As such, you have to nominate one person to deal with the correspondence of your deposit on your behalf – a Lead Tenant.

When we register your deposit, the Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS) will contact the Lead Tenant and issue them with a Deposit ID and a release code. They will need to keep this safe until the end of your tenancy.

Once your tenancy has expired and we have completed your property checks, we will send you a deposit return statement and initiate the release of your deposit. It is then the responsibility of the Lead Tenant to accept the deposit return and deal with the distribution of the deposit monies back to the rest of the group.

Cleaning

This is often one of the biggest causes of disagreement within a shared property and something that can be easily avoided with a bit of planning. We would recommend that you either create a rota for cleaning so that everyone shares the work, or if time is tight, instruct a contract cleaner for your communal areas.

This can help ensure that the property is kept in good condition and no-one is responsible for doing everything. This ‘little and often’ approach will also save lots of time and effort at the end of the tenancy if things have been kept ticking over.

Gardens

Generally, gardens will be the responsibility of the tenants unless the tenancy agreement states otherwise. The landlord is not obliged to provide you any tools or equipment to carry out the gardening (in the same way they do not provide cleaning equipment) so you may want to weigh up whether you pay for a gardener, or whether you buy tools between yourselves.

Renting an Individual Room

If you rent an individual room in a shared house, we aim to make sure your stay is as pleasant as possible. Most properties of this type will have communal cleaners as well as broadband and utilities already set up. We recommend that you read our ‘tenants guide to sharing’ before moving into a shared house.

The success of many shared houses comes down to group personalities and dynamics. Don’t worry if we ask a little more information at the referencing stage - we're just trying to make a good match and consider your compatibility with our existing groups. Each of our tenant sharers is required to write a short bio so that prospective tenants can get a feel for who they might be joining in a future house share.

“Comfort lettings were really easy to communicate with and they always got back to queries promptly. The process of moving in and out of our rented house went really smoothly. Any maintenance issues we had were quickly resolved without any qualms. After moving out we got our deposit back faster than I expected following experience renting elsewhere in the past. I would highly recommend them. Thanks Comfort Lettings! ”

Comfort Tenant - Joseph