Jonathan Copus

Thanks, Aaron - a great idea for electricity, but I'm not sure how workable it would be with shared utilities like gas (which runs the central heating) - and things like Council Tax are not metered, of course. But many thanks for your suggestion - certainly worth bearing in mind for the future. All the best Jonathan

Many thanks, Jeremy - your advice seems sound to me. At the next opportunity we'll build utility bills into the rent and allow a 'cushion' as you suggest. That does indeed seem the fairest and least problematic approach. The reason for our previous transparency was partly a desire to be fair, but also because I thought I'd read somewhere that tenants had a legal right to see the bills. However, I can't now re-find this reference, so it may have applied to social landlords in the State of Kentucky, for all I know! Thank, you, too, for your PM: I'm about to reply by similar means. All the best Jonathan

Thank you so much, Preston, for your very full and perceptive advice. We'll digest it and follow the lines you suggest. Many thanks again for your time and trouble. Jonathan

Can anyone give us a steer on what's fair, please? My wife and I let out three rooms – two doubles and a single – in a property we used to occupy. To save hassle we've kept the CTax and utilities in our name, and charge our tenants a share of the exact amount the council and utility companies charge us – except that we retain one room in the house for our own occasional use, and pay a proportion of the utilities ourselves to reflect this use. That's fine as long as all the rooms are fully occupied: each of the five tenants pays one-sixth of the bills and we pay one-sixth between us. But now we have a tenant whose wife is going to join him in a few months' time. Should he pay her share of the utilities right from the start? If not, who should? We have another tenant who wants to rent a double room for single occupancy. Should she pay one person's share of the bills, or two? And what happens if one of the rooms falls vacant for a while? Do we increase everybody's payments to fill the gap, or just look big and pay up ourselves? Or should we (while remaining totally transparent about the amount the utility companies etc are charging us) charge our tenants a bit extra each month to put in a 'pot' for filling any gaps? We only have the one rental property, so we can't spread any losses. Our AST agreement is deliberately vague, and mentions just 'a proportionate contribution' to the bills. My question really is, what do you chaps and chapesses do, and what do you think is fair all round? Many thanks.