Student bills · Selly Oak, Birmingham

Your letting agent's bills bundle is quietly costing your house thousands.

Bundles feel easy. But sorting broadband, energy, water and your TV licence yourself takes about an hour — and our six-person Selly Oak house saved over £2,000 doing exactly that. Here's the full playbook, free.

Compare bundle prices How to do it yourself
≈ 1 hour, once 4 bills to sort 0 middlemen
BILLSORTED
SELLY OAK · BIRMINGHAM · B29
How many in your house?
UniHomes bundle£7,254/yr
Doing it yourself£3,816/yr
YOUR HOUSE SAVES £3,438
*** THANK YOU FOR NOT OVERPAYING ***

Compared against UniHomes at £23.25 per person per week — the package letting agents push hardest. DIY figures are our real Selly Oak house bills. Full comparison below.

Bundles vs doing it yourself

Bills packages charge per person, per week — and the convenience markup adds up fast across a whole house and a whole year. Here's how the popular packages stack up against sorting it yourself.

Provider Per person / week Per person / year 6-bed house / year What's included
Do it yourselfThe BillSorted wayYou pick every supplier £12.23 £636 £3,816 Octopus energy, Severn Trent water, TV licence & 1800 Mbps YouFibre broadband — faster internet than any bundle, and you keep any credit at year end.
Simple Student BillsBills package £18.45 £959 £5,756 Energy, water, broadband (1000 Mbps), TV licence
FusedBills package £18.92 £984 £5,903 Energy, water, broadband (1000 Mbps), TV licence
HousrBills package £19.27 £1,002 £6,012 Energy, water, broadband (1000 Mbps), TV licence
UniHomesThe one agents push hardest £23.25 £1,209 £7,254 Energy, water, broadband (1000 Mbps), TV licence

About these numbers: the DIY figures are the real bills from our own 6-bed Selly Oak house (energy £200/month with Octopus including a one-off £50 sign-up fee, water £73/month with Severn Trent, broadband £30/month with YouFibre, TV licence £180/year). Package prices are the quotes we received for the same house; they vary by property and usage caps often apply — always check the quote on your own tenancy before signing. Last reviewed July 2026.

Set it up yourself in an afternoon

Only two bills are actually worth shopping around for. Do them in this order, put one housemate's name on each account (or everyone's, for energy), and split payments with a standing order or Splitwise.

1. Broadband — the one everyone cares about

Most of Selly Oak has full-fibre available. Check what your exact address can get, then pick the shortest contract that covers your tenancy (9 or 12 months — avoid 24-month deals).

  • Run your postcode through a comparison site to see every provider at your address.
  • Bundles cap you at 1000 Mbps. Buying direct, you can get nearly double the speed for £5 per person a month.
  • Before you sign up, search for a YouFibre referral code — new customers can earn up to £100 through one.
  • One person signs up; everyone else pays them by standing order on the 1st of the month.
Our Selly Oak pick: YouFibre 1800 Mbps at £30/month for the whole house — faster than any bundle's broadband, for £1.15 each per week.
≈ 20 min

2. Gas & electric — the biggest saving

This is where bundles make their margin. Energy is the largest bill in the house, and switching supplier takes minutes online.

  • Day one: photograph your gas and electricity meters. This protects you from paying the previous tenants' usage.
  • Find out who currently supplies the house (ask the agent, or use the national "find my supplier" services), then compare tariffs and switch.
  • Put every housemate's name on the account — it spreads the credit-history benefit and the responsibility.
  • Pay by monthly direct debit and submit meter readings monthly so you only ever pay for what you use.
Our Selly Oak pick: Octopus Energy — our 6-bed house paid £200/month all-in (gas + electric, including a one-off £50 sign-up fee), with a fixed tariff for a predictable cost all tenancy.
Full transparency: that's our referral link — if you sign up through it, your house gets £50 credit and so do we. It helps keep BillSorted free, but Octopus costs exactly the same if you'd rather go direct at octopus.energy.
≈ 15 min
One hour of admin. Up to £3,400 back in the house kitty.
That's every bill sorted for the year — and still £1,900+ saved even against the cheapest bundle on the market.
~60 min

The bills you can't shop around for

No comparison needed here — there's one supplier, or one fee. You just need to register so the bill is in your name and not racking up against your deposit.

Water · Severn Trent

Water — one supplier, no choice

All of Birmingham is supplied by Severn Trent, so there's nothing to compare. Register your names and move-in date on their website, and if the house has a water meter, photograph it on day one. Our 6-bed house paid £73/month — about £2.80 each per week, split evenly.

≈ 10 min
TV Licence · tvlicensing.co.uk

TV licence — one fee, or none

You need one licence per joint tenancy if anyone watches live TV or BBC iPlayer — around £180 a year, so £2.50 each per month in a 6-bed. Set it up online and split it. If nobody watches live TV or iPlayer, you can legally declare you don't need one and pay nothing.

≈ 5 min
Council tax · Birmingham City Council

Council tax — you're exempt

Full-time students don't pay council tax, but the exemption isn't automatic. Each housemate downloads their student status certificate from the university portal and submits it to Birmingham City Council's student exemption form. Ignore this and the bills will keep coming.

≈ 10 min
"The agent told us bills were 'basically the same price everywhere'. One evening of quotes later, we'd found £2,000."
— FOUNDER, BILLSORTED · 6-BED HOUSE, SELLY OAK

BillSorted started in a Selly Oak house-hunt. Like every second year, we were rushed into viewings in October and pushed hard towards a "bills included" package. It sounded easy — one payment, no arguments.

Then we actually priced it up. The same broadband, the same energy, the same water — bought directly — came to a fraction of the package price. Over the year, our six-person house kept more than £2,000 that would have gone to a middleman.

The catch? There isn't one. It took about an hour, once. BillSorted exists so every student house in Birmingham can do the same — no sign-ups, no commission, just the playbook.

The questions every house asks

What if a housemate doesn't pay their share?
This is the real fear bundles trade on. The fix is structure, not a middleman: put all names on the energy account (so responsibility is shared), have everyone set a standing order for the 1st of the month, and track it in a shared spreadsheet or Splitwise. In a joint tenancy you're already jointly liable for the rent — bills are no different.
Aren't bundles worth it for the convenience?
That's a genuine trade-off — but be clear about the price of it. The "convenience" is roughly an hour of setup, and in a 6-bed house it can cost £300+ per person over the year. Bundles also commonly have usage caps, so heavy winters can mean surprise top-up charges anyway.
Whose name goes on the bills?
Energy: everyone's, ideally — suppliers allow multiple account holders, and paying a utility bill by direct debit quietly builds each person's credit history. Broadband and water usually allow one or two names; pick your most organised housemates and split via standing order.
Do we pay bills over summer if nobody's living there?
If your tenancy covers the summer, the contracts keep running — but usage-based bills (metered energy and water) drop to almost nothing while the house is empty. Submit a meter reading when you leave for summer and another when you return so you're billed accurately, not estimated.
What do we do when we move out?
Photograph every meter on your last day, submit final readings, and give each supplier a forwarding address. Close accounts don't chase you if you close them properly — and if you've overpaid on direct debit through the year, the credit comes back to you, not to a bundle company.
Is BillSorted trying to sell me something?
No — the guide is free and you never sign up to anything through us. One honest exception: our Octopus Energy link is a referral, which gives your house £50 credit and gives us £50 too. It's clearly labelled where it appears, the price is identical either way, and you're welcome to go to Octopus directly instead. Everything else on this page — including the YouFibre, Severn Trent and TV Licensing links — earns us nothing.

An hour tonight. £2,000 this year.

Get the house in one room, put the steps above on the TV, and sort every bill before the pizza arrives.

Start with broadband