How much rent should you charge a boomerang?

Kirsty Mcluckie on the contributions of adult kids

Ilet out a rueful guffaw at a poll this week regarding how much parents of adult children should be charging them in rent if they continue or return to live at home.

The poll, carried out by Compare the Market, suggested that 74 per cent 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 doing so.

The company has provided a calculator to work out how much your offspring should be handing over each month.

For my relatively inexpensive postcode, I should apparently be charging any boomerang children £670 per month as a contribution to mortgage payments, food and utilities.

Had I had the foresight – and the budget – to buy in a more expensive area however, I could be really raking it in.

In the most expensive streets in Edinburgh, such as Heriot Row, parents should be charging the fruit of their loins £891 per month as a fair contribution to household expenses, whereas in London, in Kensington Palace Gardens, with the most expensive house prices in Britain, it would be £1,061.

I suspect however, that if you have a house in Kensington Palace Gardens, or indeed Heriot Row, you probably aren’t too fussed about your children helping out with mortgage payments.

For the rest of us, there is the dilemma of when it is appropriate to expect nearly-fledged children to pay rent.

With one child away at university, but returning for holidays, we have yet to get to grips with the subject.

My feeling is that returning home for a couple of months in the summer allows her to get a part time job and build up funds to live off for the rest of the year, so charging her rent would be counterproductive, as we would end up having to help her out financially during term time.

My husband doesn’t quite see it that way and chunters about having to hand over half his wages from his first job to his mother for his keep, back in the day.

If number one child returns home postuniversity and gets a full time job, I would expect a contribution, although £670 a month is steep.

The study by Compare the Market found that on average, parents request only £68 towards their mortgage or rent, £31 on bills, and £33 on food, from each child, per month.

When asked why parents are charging their kids, the fact that they are in full or part time employment came out on top, 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, while almost a quarter cannot afford to pay for the mortgage or rent, as well as bills, without the contribution.

Chris King from the Compare the Market website said: “We’re not surprised that more than half of parents are charging their adult children to live at home, not only from a financial perspective but also to help teach them the true value of money.”

I’m somewhat doubtful that charging just £33 a month for food is teaching grown-up children the true value of money, but that has more to do with the amount my two eat.

I take my hat off however to the 4 per cent of parents in the poll who charge interest on late payments. Harsh, but fair