What is a HouseShare?

Its simple - A House share, commonly also known as a flat share is where a group of people live together in one house, sharing a bathroom, kitchen and lounge area to hang out in.

All sorts! Thats what is so great about house shares. People live in house shares for varieties of reasons. Students are the traditional "housesharers" with, lets face it, (in our day we threw those late night house parties too,) an accurate stigma attached. However, with the past decade of higher house prices, a new generation of young professionals and university/college graduates are increasingly opting for the house share lifestyle, either to maintain location flexibility, or simply to further the debauchery of their university life before they settle down. Living in a House share or a flat share is often a life style choice and more often than not the most effective and successful way of building your (offline) social life in a new city or town.

It largely depends from house to house. In a student houseshare, it is often that there is one contract binding all or each of the students to live in the house for the full academic year. If there is one agreement then tenants have to pool together their shares of the rent and pay the landlord together. If one cannot afford the rent then problems can arise.
In other houseshares, the common arrangement is that each room is rented individually by the tenants and each tenant is responsible for paying the rent for that room. That way - if one person cannot afford to pay the rent, then you do not have to carry the can for them.
Certain bills such as taxes, water, and possibly electricity, can be included in the rent. Additional bills such as telephone, broadband internet and satellite/cable TV are often paid for by one tenant who collects equal shares off the other tenants.

As per the rent - this can vary from house to house. Often there is a minimum term stipulated in the rental contract and a notice period required from either tenant or landlord to cease the contract. We would recommend that you read all contract terms thoroughly before you enter into a contract and we cannot provide professional legal advice regarding entering into a contract, and therefore can only recommend that you seek professional assistance if required.

The most common thing that happens when numerous people live together are a). untidiness, b). untidiness, and c). people don't get on. Not to put a dampener on the whole house share thing, but these things inevitably happen.
To mitigate these little gripes it is highly recommended you meet ALL your prospective housemates before you move in. For example if your a nice clean tidy girl who thinks Girls Aloud are the best thing to happen to the world since Boyzone, you may think twice before moving in with a bunch of PlayStation playing, lazy guys who permanently insist that the new Guns'n'Roses album was really was worth the wait.
The saving grace and possibly the best aspects of housesharing is that the "turnover" of people in Houseshares (particularly those with 5 or more rooms) can be high, so with people constantly moving on and new housemates moving in the dynamics of the house can be constantly shifting. Also - It is another excuse for a house party!