Sociable
House sharing is very sociable and can be a great way of making friends - particularly if you are new to the area. In our houses you get to meet other like-minded working professionals and have good company in the evenings and at weekends.
No surprise bills
There are no extra bills to worry about. You know how much you are paying each month so there are no arguments about splitting costs and you can budget more easily.
Flexible
Because our tenancies are on an individual room basis, you're not tied into a shared AST and reliant on other people. After an initial 6 month contract you only have to give one month's notice to move. Fabulously flexible for those who are moving jobs or new to the area.
Affordable
House sharing is more affordable than renting your own place. By sharing, you're able to live in a better standard of property or in a better area than you could probably afford if you wanted to live on your own. Our current room rates are between £550 and £700pcm with all bills included.
Hassle-free
When something breaks or goes wrong in the house, it's our responsibility to fix it, stay in for the repair-man and get it sorted. Not yours.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is included in my rent?
All bills are included in one single monthly rent. This includes: Council Tax; Gas and Electricity bills; Water bills; seriously high speed Virgin business-broadband! (350 Mbps); a weekly cleaner for the shared areas; a monthly clean of ensuites; gardening; all general maintenance. The only additional cost is for use of the tumble dryer which is £1 per hour of drying. This is simply because dryers are so bad for the environment and to encourage everyone to think before using it on auto-pilot (each house has a washing line and drying racks).
We suggest that our houses set up a house kitty to cover household essentials (bin bags, washing powder, dishwasher tablets etc.) and we leave that up to each house to best arrange between themselves.
What fees do you have for moving in?
There are no fees for moving in.
We do take a Holding Deposit of £100 to reserve the room for you while references are taken but this is offset against your first month’s rent.
Do you require a deposit?
Yes. We take a deposit of £500. This is held in the government backed Deposit Protection Scheme and returned directly to you by them at the end of your tenancy. We ask that rent is paid monthly in advance by Standing Order.
What is the minimum tenancy term?
We use a standard 6 month assured shorthold tenancy agreement. But we hope you’ll want to stay longer than that, in which case your tenancy would roll into a Contractual Periodic tenancy with no further paperwork required. At that point you would only need to give one month’s notice should you wish to leave.
We are also able to consider a shorter tenancy term than the standard 6 months on a case by case basis.
What is in my room?
All bedrooms are fully furnished with a double ottoman bed (with underbed storage), an orthopaedic mattress, wardrobe, chest of drawers, bedside table, table lamp and chair. Most rooms have a desk and/or a bookcase. We also provide mattress protectors and bath mats. Your room has its own lock for privacy.
Each room also has multiple power sockets, an aerial point for freeview TV and a hardwired Cat 6 Ethernet point in addition to high speed wifi throughout.
We don’t provide bedding or towels but if you are moving from abroad and want to buy it and get it sent to us, we will make sure it’s at the house ready for your arrival.
What about the rest of the house?
All houses are fully equipped with cooking and eating utensils, pots and pans, mugs and glasses. They all have large fridge/freezers where everyone has a dedicated shelf and their own storage cupboard for food. Plus ironing boards & irons, a hoover and we have games and puzzles to share & borrow for anyone interested.
The living rooms have a large SMART TV with comfy sofas and somewhere to eat your meals. There is seating for everyone in the house to eat together should you wish.
Each garden has a shed with a padlock for use by the housemates to store bicycles or other outdoor equipment. There is an outdoor table and chairs and a BBQ for those summer evenings. We also have bicycles to borrow if anyone needs one for work or for fun.
Is there parking?
Parking is available at all our houses with some spaces on the drive and some on the street (either immediately outside the house or a very short walk away). We don’t allocate space on the drive and our housemates always manage to work out a way to make it fair. Not all of our housemates have (or need) cars as 3 of our 4 houses are less than 5 minutes walk from the station.
Can you tell me about safety?
Our houses are all in good residential areas and we install security motion sensor lights at the front of each house for dark evenings. We take our housemates safety very seriously and have fitted unobtrusive fire doors throughout, smoke alarms in all bedrooms and living rooms, carbon monoxide alarms adjacent to the boiler and gas hobs and emergency lighting in hallways. Our systems are tested regularly and all our certificates are available for inspection. We also use a secure key system which means that spare keys cannot be cut without authority and so we can be confident that they only person (other than us) who has access to your room (and house) is you.
Who else will be living there?
We work hard to recruit like-minded young working professionals to our houses who will get on well together and make the house a home rather than a room to lodge in. We interview and reference everyone personally. Our housemates often cook or socialise together – one house has a ‘house bucket list’ of fun activities to tick off together and this year, our housemates have been hugely supportive of each other arranging plenty of in-house activities (games nights, bake-offs, garden drinks, film festivals, reading challenges etc.). In non-Covid times, we also arrange occasional drinks evenings where housemates from our different houses can get together at which we promise to buy the first round or two although we haven’t managed to do this for obvious reasons this year… Hopefully we can all get together in 2021!
If there’s anything else we haven’t covered here – do please get in touch – we’d love to chat and answer any questions you may have.