What is pro rata rent?
‘Pro rata’ means divided in proportion.
So, where you only owe rent for part of the month, the amount owed needs to be worked out pro rata.
How to calculate pro rata rent
OpenRent uses a type of contract called an Assured Shorthold Tenancy (AST).
With an AST you pay rent on a monthly basis, so your rental period is one month. Each rental period begins on the day which your rent is due.
What is important to remember is that you owe the same amount of rent every month (period), but some months have a different number of days. Therefore, in some months you technically pay more rent per day than others.
Therefore, pro rata rent needs to be worked out on a monthly basis.
Let’s have a look at some examples below:
Pro rata rent at the end of a tenancy
This usually happens when a landlord serves a Section 21 notice which expired part way through a period. In these cases, the method you must use is described in the Housing Act 1988.
In these cases, you will need to multiply the monthly rent by the ratio of days elapsed in the period. For example, consider a tenancy with a monthly rent of £600 where the tenant normally pays on the 1st of the month:
If a Section 21 notice is served and expires on the 10th day of a 30-day month, then you would divide 10 by 30 to get a third. You would then multiply £600 by a third to get £200. The amount of rent due for the final (partial) rental period is, therefore, £200.
However, had this been for February, then you would need to divide 10 by 28, as there are 28 days in the month of February (usually). The pro rata rent owed in this case would be £214.29.
Pro rata rent to change the rent payment date mid-tenancy
Circumstances may change and you may find that you would like to change the date that you pay your rent during your tenancy.
Your landlord can do this on OpenRent by renewing the tenancy and you would owe pro rata rent to make up for those days between the original and new payment dates.
Imagine you pay your rent of £600 on the 1st of every month, but you decide you would like to pay on the 20th going forwards, the pro-rata rent would be worked out in the same way as above, but you don’t need to include the 20th in your calculations, as the next rent payment is due that day.
So for the month of September, pro rata rent would be worked out as:
19 divided by 30 (days to make the change divided by days in the rental period) multiplied by £600 (rental amount) = £380.
Pro rata rent at the beginning of a tenancy
You may owe pro rata rent at the beginning of your tenancy if the start date of the tenancy is on a different date to that which you will pay rent on an ongoing basis.
In this instance, it is worth keeping in mind that you will owe the first month’s rent (and any rent in advance) before the pro rata payment. This is because the change in date will take place for the first time you pay your rent during the tenancy.
For example, for a tenancy with a rental amount of £600, starting on the 1st September, but with an ongoing rent payment date of the 20th, your initial rent payment will be:
£600 (first month’s rent) + £367.74 (pro rata payment) = £967.74
The pro rata rent is different to the amount in the example above as it is worked out for the period 1st October - 19th October (19 divided by 31, then multiplied by 600). The first month’s rent covers the period from 1st September - 30th September.
What if I don’t pay on the 1st of the month?
It’s worth doing an example for where you don’t pay the rent on the 1st of the month, as it's worth understanding that your rental period does not technically run “month to month”, but “period to period”.
E.g, for a tenancy with a rental amount of £600, if you wanted to change the rent payment date from 25th to the 3rd it would be worked out as follows:
Say we are making the change from September:
Number of days to make the change = 8 days (for the period 25th September - 2nd October)
Number of days that would have been in the period = 30 (25th September - 24th October)
Therefore, pro rata rent would be worked out as 8 divided by 30, multiplied by £600 = £160. You would then be free to start paying monthly again on the 3rd October.