How to unwind a shared month when somebody moves out

Do it in this order: take meter readings on the day, work out the part-month rent, cancel or redirect the standing orders, move any bill in the leaver's name, agree what happens to their share of the deposit, and agree in writing how the bills that have not arrived yet will be settled. Six things, most of them ten minutes each, and the whole reason they go wrong is that they get done in the wrong order — or three weeks late, when one person has already moved.

None of this is about mistrust. Somebody leaving is a household closing an account it has been running for months, and accounts do not close themselves.

1. Readings on the day, before the keys go back

Electricity, gas, water if it is metered. Photograph them with the date visible. This single step converts every later argument about the final bill from an opinion into arithmetic, and it is impossible to do retroactively.

2. The part month

Rent for the days they were actually there, at a method you both name out loud before you calculate it. Do this while the person is still around to disagree with it — a figure sent after somebody has moved is a figure they have to take on trust.

3. Standing orders, both directions

The leaver cancels theirs. Everybody staying changes theirs, because the remaining shares have gone up. This is the step most often forgotten, and it produces the worst version of the problem: a household that is short on rent in the first month without noticing until the landlord says so.

4. Names on the accounts

Any utility, broadband or council account in the leaver's name has to move now, while they are still willing to sit on the phone for twenty minutes. In six weeks they will not be. If an account cannot be moved before they go, agree who is responsible for it in the meantime.

5. The deposit

Their share of the deposit usually comes from the incoming person rather than from the landlord, because the landlord holds one deposit for the property until the whole tenancy ends. Agreeing that explicitly — who pays whom, and when — avoids the most common ugly surprise in a house share.

6. The bills that have not arrived yet

Utilities bill in arrears, so the last one covering their time in the house will land weeks after they go. Agree now whether you are holding a small amount back or settling at an estimate on the day. Either works. Deciding afterwards does not.

Write the six answers down somewhere both of you can see. Not because anybody expects trouble, but because in a month neither of you will remember what was agreed on a day when there were boxes in the hallway.