[Priddo]

I'm moving into a house with 4 other people from my uni next year, and we were considering opening a joint account which we could all access/pay into, and then paying bills and food costs etc from that account to save the hassle of one person paying for food then get angry cause they're not refunded or whatever.

Does anyone have any experience in anything like this, or know any good banks that would do this?

[goodone_sammi]

I have a joint bank account at the moment with 5 other of my housemates and it seems to be working okay. it isn't used for food, just for bills. we each have standing orders paid in every month to cover the cost. i think we had to get one person to set it up, then added the rest of the groups names to the account at a later date. make sure you arent dibbing into it too much though because you could easily end up spending too much without realising, or somebody could start taking money without you realising if they had access (not to say your friends arent trustworthy though!)

[RightSaidJames]

One of my friends had a joint account last year, and they looked at the statement to find "Topshop - £10" on it!

But it's normally fine if you define the rules clearly. It's probably best to use it only for bills and sort out general household items with a kitty that everyone pays into.

[Paeony]

It's really not a good idea to open joint accounts with people (especially people you don't really know), as then you're financially linked and any financial problems they have could potentially end up affecting your credit rating in the future. That could make your life difficult once you leave uni and need to be credit checked to rent somewhere to live - you might be fine but someone you're linked to might not be so financially savvy and their misdemeanours will affect your credit rating.

It's also worth bearing in mind that if you can all put money into a joint account then you can all take money out. Remember too that you'll need everyone's signatures to close the account and if someone's disappeared in the meantime, it'll mean that the account will have to stay open for as long as it takes to track whoever it is down. If they're being less than sensible financially then that will impact on you for however long the account is open. Of course that's a worst case scenario but the sad fact is that a lot of students have money problems, and a lot of students aren't aware how much mismanaged debt can and will impact on their lives. It's really best not to take the chance, and control your own finances.

[hippieglitter]

(Original post by Priddo)
I'm moving into a house with 4 other people from my uni next year, and we were considering opening a joint account which we could all access/pay into, and then paying bills and food costs etc from that account to save the hassle of one person paying for food then get angry cause they're not refunded or whatever.

Does anyone have any experience in anything like this, or know any good banks that would do this?

I wouldn't, i really wouldn't, your just asking for one housemate to run off with the lot! Why don't you just each buy your own food that's what we all did, we took it in turns to buy stuff like soap and loo rool and cleaning products that everyone used, so it didn't feel like one person was paying all the time. But we all bought our own separate food and had allocated cupboards so it didn't get mixed up.

[emma2308]

i wouldnt, at the end of the day who do you know who you can and cannot really trust, but if you think you can all trust each other why dont you try putting the money in a pot and treat that as your bank account first before starting anything official

[PeterGriffin]

Sounds a bit risky, what if someone spent it all on something for just them? Like a phone or clothes or something?

[Sprockette]

I wouldn't trust anyone enough to do this, I'll have trouble doing it when I move in with my fiance lol In any student flats I've been in the bills haven;t been paid for by standing order. 'm sure some peoples are but... A kitty might be a better idea. Then again having money lying around in a box isn't any safer I guess! I don't know if you can but try getting a bank account that doesn't have cards with it and only use it for standing orders, etc so no-one can be tempted when shopping. Stuff for the house, you can just buy in turns (and have a rota if things get messy and you forget who bought last!) That standing-order-only bank account mightn't exist, btw...

[Chris4]

(Original post by Sprockette)
I don't know if you can but try getting a bank account that doesn't have cards with it and only use it for standing orders, etc so no-one can be tempted when shopping.

That's what I was thinking - if 1 person sets up an account (with all of the house mates making standing orders into it) there will only be 1 debit card and thus won't be used by anyone else.

Is that a better option?

Also, to the people saying joint accounts aren't safe, what do you consider as an alternative? The first thing I thought of was 1 person using their account then people pay standing orders into that, but I don't know..

[Paeony]

You'd need to check what kind of bank account you can get. You might not be able to get another student account and if you haven't got much 'income' you might only be able to get a basic bank account. The problem with these is that apparently they don't look good in terms of your credit rating (you can't get an overdraft on them, for example, so the assumption is that you're bad with money ... ) and AFAIK you can't set up standing orders from them, although you can pay standing orders into them.

It's worth checking though as I'm not sure whether my advice is still current - I have a joint account with my partner which we set up when we were students (I know, I know ) because we wanted to set up a standing order for our rent. Unfortunately all we could get was this basic bank account so we ended up just setting up the SO from one of our personal accounts. Again, this might not work for you.

I think that with the basic accounts you can choose not to have a card at all - I know we never had one. Obviously though they're still accessible if you go to the bank in person or if you bank online, so it's really up to you to work out if there's anyone you trust enough to be in charge of it.

I don't think there's an ideal solution for this. You need to find out how your landlord wants the rent, as it may be that you can all pay seperately. In terms of bills, that's really up to you, but a lot of people like to share the bills out so everyone has responsibility for something, and you don't end up with one person having to do all the nagging and chasing. Sharing food bills is trickier, but maybe a rota might work? It depends on the extent to which you're going to share though - a rota would work for milk, bread, loo rolls etc, but won't work so well if you're planning to do anything more than that.

[Chris4]

Thanks for your post, Paeony.

(Original post by Paeony)
I don't think there's an ideal solution for this. You need to find out how your landlord wants the rent, as it may be that you can all pay seperately.

Yeah we'll all be paying rent separately.

(Original post by Paeony)
In terms of bills, that's really up to you, but a lot of people like to share the bills out so everyone has responsibility for something, and you don't end up with one person having to do all the nagging and chasing.

Not sure what you mean there. We'll be sharing the bills (electric, gas, water, internet, etc.) but I can't see a way which doesn't involve 1 person being in charge, and that person will probably be me, so if there's a way out of that it'd help a lot.

(Original post by Paeony)
Sharing food bills is trickier, but maybe a rota might work? It depends on the extent to which you're going to share though - a rota would work for milk, bread, loo rolls etc, but won't work so well if you're planning to do anything more than that.

Yeah sure. I'm in halls at the moment and we have a rota for toilet roll. In the house we'll have to add things onto that like kitchen roll, cleaning products, etc.

As for the food I think it's fair to buy everything ourselves, like we currently do. If you go sharing bread, 1 person is going to eat more than others and it'll be unfair, so individual food is fine.

[Paeony]

(Original post by Chris4)
Not sure what you mean there. We'll be sharing the bills (electric, gas, water, internet, etc.) but I can't see a way which doesn't involve 1 person being in charge, and that person will probably be me, so if there's a way out of that it'd help a lot.

Sorry, I should have been clearer. What I meant there was that if you can't get joint names on a bill, then you all take a bill in your name, so Chris is responsible for the gas, Bob for the electricity, Sue for the phone, Helen for the water etc etc. It obviously isn't even (gas/electric will probably be a lot more expensive than the phone, uless you're going for a fairly large package) but that means that it isn't just one person in charge of organising everything. There's less risk then of one person being saddled with all of the problems/any outstanding debts, and it means that everyone has to do some of the nagging and chasing when it comes to getting money off people. Also, if you've all got a bill in your name it tends to make people a bit more responsible in terms of paying, because they tend to realise that if they don't pay up, people won't pay them either ...

I personally would be quite wary of trying to organise everything so that it was all in my name - there's a temptation to do it because it is easier, but you really don't want to run the risk of being saddled with a houseful of bills and the utilites companies turing round and saying 'sorry, it's your name on the bill so YOU have to pay it, your housemates aren't our problem'. That's fair enough, but if I'm risking that then I'd rather do it with one bill rather than five. Call me cynical, but having lived in shared houses it's best to make it clear from the start what your responsibilites are, and how you're going to split the bills etc.

[Chris4]

(Original post by Paeony)
Sorry, I should have been clearer. What I meant there was that if you can't get joint names on a bill, then you all take a bill in your name, so Chris is responsible for the gas, Bob for the electricity, Sue for the phone, Helen for the water etc etc. It obviously isn't even (gas/electric will probably be a lot more expensive than the phone, uless you're going for a fairly large package) but that means that it isn't just one person in charge of organising everything. There's less risk then of one person being saddled with all of the problems/any outstanding debts, and it means that everyone has to do some of the nagging and chasing when it comes to getting money off people. Also, if you've all got a bill in your name it tends to make people a bit more responsible in terms of paying, because they tend to realise that if they don't pay up, people won't pay them either ...

That's a very good point,. I'll definitely consider that nearer the time, thank you.

[daniellog]

Hey Guys,

I have a similar problem at the moment. I've just finished uni and I've been lucky enough to go straight into a job. Me and two other students have decided to rent a house at the beginning of August and we are looking at ways of paying for rent and utility bills. We have been to HSBC to enquire about opening a "Community" account to pay for bills and rent but to open this we need a utility bill for the address that we haven't moved into yet. I do know and trust the other students who I'm living with so I should be ok for opening an account, but i'm not sure what to do about utilities at this point. I want to switch to the cheapest plan but without a join account I won't be able to do this straight away. Should I just wait till I move in or is it possible to have the utilities under my account and then switch it to the joint?

Dan

[Origami Bullets]

(Original post by daniellog)
Hey Guys,

I have a similar problem at the moment. I've just finished uni and I've been lucky enough to go straight into a job. Me and two other students have decided to rent a house at the beginning of August and we are looking at ways of paying for rent and utility bills. We have been to HSBC to enquire about opening a "Community" account to pay for bills and rent but to open this we need a utility bill for the address that we haven't moved into yet. I do know and trust the other students who I'm living with so I should be ok for opening an account, but i'm not sure what to do about utilities at this point. I want to switch to the cheapest plan but without a join account I won't be able to do this straight away. Should I just wait till I move in or is it possible to have the utilities under my account and then switch it to the joint?

Dan

I'd suggest waiting until you move in. The previous tenants should have informed the utility companies that they have moved out, so you are likely to find a utility bill on your doormat when you move in / very shortly afterwards, so you will be able to open the bank account then.