The latest research by comparethemarket.com has found that a staggering 74% of parents feel there isn’t enough information on hand when it comes to knowing how much to charge their adult children for living at home, despite over half (53%) admitting to doing so.
According to the poll, on average, parents request £68 towards their mortgage or rent, £31 on bills, and £33 on food, from each child, per month. Despite what parents ask their children to contribute financially, over half (51%) admitted they were unsure of what they actually should be charging. To help guide parents, comparethemarket.com has created a tool which calculates how much parents could be charging based on a multitude of factors determined by location, including local rent, food, gas and electricity prices which can be found here.
When asked why parents are charging their kids to live with them, the fact that they are in full or part time employment came out on top. This was closely followed by the expectation that they are now an adult, and therefore should be contributing. Teaching kids a good lesson on how to manage money also fared high on why children should pay up to parents, whilst almost a quarter (24%) admitted they cannot afford to pay for the mortgage or rent, as well as bills, without their contribution.
Chris King, Head of Home at comparethemarket.com said: “With the cost of living increasing year on year, we’re not surprised that more than half of parents are charging their adult children to live at home with them, not only from a financial perspective but also to help teach them the true value of money.
Three quarters of parents fed back that there isn’t enough information on how much you can legitimately charge your child to live at home with you. With this insight, we wanted to create a handy calculator tool so parents can see just how much the cost of rent, electricity, gas and food bills could cost in every local area around the UK.”
The results further showed that just under a fifth (19%) of parents have been too embarrassed to ask kids to cough up for living at home with them, despite wanting to ask, and over one in ten (12%) children have actually refused to contribute towards the household bills. For payments made late, 4% of parents are even prepared to charge interest to what is owed.
More information on the research by comparethemarket.com can be found here https://www.comparethemarket.com/home-insurance/content/pa-rental/
To speak to one of our lettings team at Belvoir Liverpool Central please call us 0151 231 1613 or email liverpoolcentral@belvoir.co.uk
