When Tiana* decided to move into her best friend Lia’s flat, she had no idea it would wreck their relationship, culminating in Tiana coming home one day to find that her former bestie had changed the locks.
The pair hadn't even planned on living in the apartment that was bought for Lia by her parents. There was a lodger living there, and the money from that lodger’s rent was an “investment” that went straight into Lia’s savings account. But Tiana and Lia, aged 19 and 20 respectively, were struggling to find anywhere else to live in London. Suddenly, the lodger announced they were moving out, so into the rent-free flat they went. Except it wasn’t rent-free. Not for Tiana, at least, or the other friend they moved into the third bedroom.
Tiana worked six days a week in a burger restaurant to make rent — rent which went directly into her best friend’s savings account — all the while trying to pursue a creative career in the theatre. “I really struggled to pay that, but also I felt very grateful that I had this big double room in a well-connected area with my closest friends, so it made sense. I knew where the money was going before I moved in, and honestly, I didn't mind at the time.”
But things ended acrimoniously. “Weirdly, the issues came from her resenting me,” Tiana recalls. “We both worked in the creative industry and I think she found it difficult to be faced with the realities of what life is like for most of the population. She got to concentrate wholly on her career whereas mine got sidelined because I had to start working more than full-time to keep up with rent and bills. Obviously, because she was my best friend I’d talk to her about my frustrations about my career and finances, which really blurred the line between friend and landlord. She saw my troubles as a direct attack on her and her lifestyle and she began to shut me out.”
Then, one day, that shutting out went from figurative to literal. Tiana came home to find the locks had been changed without warning. “We haven't spoken since she evicted me but she did pay me back for the moving costs, all the decorating work I’d done and the joint flat purchases, so at least there was that,” she laughs.
In London, a gap is growing between renters and owners in which resentment can build. Adverts for £1,000 per month rooms are now the norm in many London postcodes, and the average isn’t far off, at £989 per room last quarter, a 36 per cent rise since 2017. All the while, real wages are worth less, inflation is still wreaking havoc at 6.5 per cent and it now takes nearly twenty years to save for the deposit for a house in London, according to Generation Rent.
People have always bought property for their loved ones, but it's becoming increasingly common. According to data from Legal & General, the "Bank of Family" is the busiest it has ever been, with financial aid from family expected to support 318,400 UK property purchases in total in 2023. This is up 32 per cent from 2020, the next available year of data, and 41 per cent from 2019.
Not only is it happening more, but the hand-me-downs making it possible are getting bigger: the total value of donations was an estimated £8.14 billion in the UK in 2023, up 18 percent from £6.87 billion in 2017. The Bank of Family is busier than ever, and it has a lot more to lend.
This may not necessarily be due to familial wealth increasing, but because people simply have no other choice but to call on relatives when looking to buy. According to the data from Legal & General, more than one in five recent or prospective buyers (21%) say they would have to delay their purchase by more than five years without family help, and one in 10 first-time buyers say they wouldn't be able to afford a home at all without assistance from the Bank of Family. In London house prices are 83 per cent higher than the UK average in June 2023. Ergo, the situation in the capital is worse.
Plus, good luck saving anything when more and more of that money is going towards rent. As Generation Rent CEO Ben Twomey puts it: “The price of just about everything has gone up in the last five years and sadly rents have shot up over and above the rate of inflation. With the government missing its own house building target year after year, the renting situation looks set to only get worse.”
She doesn’t pay rent, she earns more than me and yet she complains more than anyone I know about not having enough money
Interpersonal relationships are taking the strain. Your wealthy friend might have been a little irritatingly obtuse and, to use Gen Z parlance, “delulu”, before, but now their very (privileged) existence serves to remind you of your sealed fate. This is the case for Romy*, who keeps purposeful distance between her and a mate in her friendship group who had a house bought for her by her parents. “She doesn’t pay rent, she earns more than me and yet she complains more than anyone I know about not having enough money,” Romy explains.
“If it was left unmentioned it wouldn’t be annoying because she’s never gonna turn down the car and the house, but if we have a dinner plan she’ll say ‘Would it be okay if we just do it at a house because I’m really poor?’ which is annoying and quite insulting to be honest.” As a result, Romy steers clear of her. “I only see her at group things, even like a four person pub trip with her, I wouldn’t do it. I didn’t go on holiday with her last year because it was expensive but also because I knew I wouldn’t enjoy it, so definitely, it can end or weaken friendships.”
While some may consider ending a friendship over this disparity to be "rash" or "jealous" behaviour, psychotherapist Dr Sheri Jacobson says rent resentment is actually quite a typical human response to this situation. "When those in our circle have more possessions or a better lifestyle than us then usually one of two things happens," Dr Jacobson explains. "One, we aim and strive to achieve the same, which can involve putting ourselves at risk by borrowing or overspending. Or the other possibility is that we feel this disparity as this injustice in some way, that we view it as an inequality and therefore we feel bitter about it, so we subsequently take steps to distance ourselves from that person or circle, and seek out another group that feels at a more comfortable level." Dr Jacobson also explains how this resentment is likely to be exacerbated during times of stress like, say, a housing crisis, which "set the scene for higher emotional intensity."
Rent resentment doesn't just affect friendships, either — it's also damaging relationships. Sebastian* was in a relationship with his girlfriend Drea* for seven years, during which he paid rent (on the flat they lived in together, bought for her by her relatives) directly to Drea’s savings account. “She wasn't paying a mortgage,” Sebastian explains, “it was bought outright with the money that she was given by her grandparents, and then some extra by her father.” Sebastian didn’t mind so much because, “I kind of loosely understood that this was potentially going into a pot for us for the future.”
I know I’m going to have to work really hard to buy a flat and it feels like she almost got it for free. It makes me pre-judge her character
Then, when Drea moved to Australia and they decided to go long distance, the relationship broke down, and she decided to ask him for £100 he owed her from a recent mini-break as they were calling it quits. “I was like, ‘What about all the money I’ve been paying you in rent?’, so she says ‘Do you know how expensive it is to live in Australia?’, and suddenly I realised ‘Ohhh, she’s been spending all of this money.’” The “pot” for their shared savings no longer existed, and Sebastian had to move out and rebuild his life from scratch. He doesn’t hold it against Drea, but rather jokes that she had a minor case of “affluenza,” a pseudoscientific term which has been used to refer to an inability to understand the consequences of one's actions due to financial privilege.
As well as harming existing friendships and relationships, rent resentment also has the ability to stifle any budding ones. James*, who rents a flat in South London with his girlfriend, has developed a profound jealousy towards their new downstairs neighbour after finding out that she was bought her flat by her parents. “I’m really jealous because that’s a property I’d love to live in, and I work really hard to wish that one day I could maybe live there. But the money, 500k, is just ridiculous, and for that to be your first move to London for you to live on your own… I mean, she’s massively lucked out.
“It definitely makes me feel less keen on being friends with her,” he admits, “probably because of jealousy. I know I’m going to have to work really hard to buy a flat and it feels like she almost got it for free, I’m sure her parents have worked hard but it feels like she just got it on a plate, and I don’t really see myself having anything in common with someone like that. It makes me pre-judge her character a bit, like fair play she’s living the life, but it did rub me up the wrong way a bit. I’d have tried to get to know her a bit more had the circumstances been different.”
Would James be less bothered if times a little less tough? “Definitely,” he says. But without a light at the end of the tunnel, all we have is that little spark of resentment to keep us going.
