Money matters vs Fratellity...

[weedguru_animal]

I have been living in this house, here in the leafy suburb of east richmond, and am now in the process of taking the lease for the property. When I moved in, the chap whose room I took, told me that he was in charge of the lease presently, but in the near future, which has become the Now, I will have the chance to take the lease...Now this chap, a friend of sorts, left his gorgeous pitbull/staffordshire hound in my care, who was forced to accept that not only had Her room been annexxed, but by another dog, my dear Oscar. So I , along with an aussie who was living here until he trashed his car whilst drunk, moved away, looked after the thankfully warm natured Marley dog.

Now...Yoni, the chap who gave me his room, the current, soon to be expired, lease holder, has been making $$ out of all of us, and our friendship has changed somewhat. For I do not think its Right, for anyone masquerading as a friend, to be making 4-500$ per month from me and the others who live here. As to the others...it was ME who wrote adverts, then conducted interviews and invited them to live here. We are talking about January, and I ended up with a gorgeous french couple, and a german lady, all of whom I have become very close to...

Now to the specifics...

Julia, the german, and I, have been paying to Yoni, $800 pet month, inclusive of bills. The frenchies, as a couple, have been paying, $1040 per month, inclusive of bills. Times are now changing, the rent has increased and Julia and I have been approved for the lease.

It was, and remains my intention to make payments more fair.
I do not want to make money out of people I love, and I WONT. So now, I am stuck in a dilemma, of what is fair, to charge the frencies, myself, and Julia.

So...we have three rooms. The rent is $2172 per month. In a beautiful area of Melbourne, ultra close to the city, to parks, to bars, to markets, to public transport. My initial suggestion was, halfway between charging 50% of the rent for the frenchies, as we are 4 people, and charging 33.3333333333% of ther rent to them, as in doing this deed solely on ROOMS. So I headed halfway between the two extremes, and suggested charging them a person and half. Which equates to somewhere between 33.33333 and 50 % of rent. Which I surmised would be Julia and I paying, each, 29% of the rent, and the frenchies between then, paying, 42% of the rent. Which to me, is equivalent of a person and a half person...

This half person figure is hard to work out, because, undoubtedly, I have love for them both, but also, it DOES make a difference having a couple and two singles...in terms of sitting down, of cooking, of using the bathroom..etc. As for the bills, its obviously, to me, and then, fair, to split them, from now on, into 4. However, they have made some excel spreadsheet calculations, and come up with a more expensive routine for them, and a massively cheaper, than present, deal, for Julia and I.

We are ALL working.

What is fair???
of the $2172 rent and bills...???
I would appreciate your input. As I know that this ideal of 'FAIR' is not merely mathematics...

[WeedGuru_Flow]

who has the biggest rooms,who uses most of the electricity...

I think the fairest would be to split the cost four ways to begin with and then add to or take from that amount if one uses more electricity/facilities/has a bigger space etc.

[Ziggy]

I think your being really nice about it since the couple is technically two people, and you and the german lady are taking on the half person you took out of their rent.

Flow has a good point. If the rent doesnt include utilities, and that stuff is extra, maybe you should have a grace period in the first month to see who uses the most electricity and stuff. And then after that first month, the rent is up for a slight change. Just make sure they dont know about it, or else they might not use as much as they normally do lol.

[(weedguru)scarf]

i think he said that it was inclusive- or was that just what Yoni was doing?

What was the Frenchies spreadsheet calculations?
Did it work out to be them paying 1/2 the rent with you and the german paying a 1/4 each?

I think that fair is splitting the bills into four and the rent into the number of rooms.
Simply because if you charge per room purely for rent then it wouldnt matter if it was 1 2 or 10 people in that room.
Likewise, the bills are affected by the total number of people using amenities in your house, so charging each person
seems like the balanced thing to do.

[weedguru_animal]

Well...the bills, MUST be split 4 ways...without any deliberation over who uses what. Its the fairest way to be. As for the rent, we have spoken as a house, as a family of sorts, and agreed that the frenchies will pay 40% , and Julia and I, will pay 30% each...And once the bills start coming in, we will again discuss how things are going...

[(weedguru)scarf]

seems fair.. discussion between all parties seems reasonable.
where was the german when i was over?

[weedguru_animal]

She moved in the week after, mate...speaking of you being here, you should come some time soon, for a night of weed, vodka and muppet racemania???

[(weedguru)scarf]

i do like the sound of that... a weekend or weeknight better for you?
perhaps next friday?