How life in the house actually works.
Beyond bedrooms, a student rental is defined by what surrounds them: the kitchen where evenings begin, the pool that rescues exam week, the garden, patio, and barbecue where new friendships set in over a slow breakfast or a long summer dinner. Here is what to expect from the daily life of this house.
Spaces designed for seven people to live well together.
Swimming pool
A real swimming pool, set in the back garden. Through the warmer months, this is where the house unwinds — between classes, at weekends, at the end of long study days. It is one of the genuine luxuries of the property and rare among student rentals at any price point.
Garden & Patio & Barbecue
The garden is mature and properly planted, with seating tucked among the greenery. The garden, patio and barbecue serve as the house's outdoor living room — for slow Sunday breakfasts, late-evening conversations, and the kind of unforced socializing that turns housemates into friends.
The kitchen, with two refrigerators
One of the more practical luxuries of the house: two full-size fridges. Seven students never have to negotiate over shelf space, and the kitchen itself is generous enough that more than one student can cook at the same time without bumping elbows. There is room for a long communal meal when the house decides on one.
Bicycle storage
A covered area inside the property is dedicated to bicycles — secure, sheltered, and out of the rain. For students who prefer two wheels to the bus, Sant Cugat is gentle terrain and bike-friendly streets connect easily to the nearby cycle paths.
Cleaning, maintenance, and zero agency fees.
If a student prefers their private room cleaned weekly as well, this can be arranged separately.
Transparent by design — every bill in a shared folder.
WiFi, gas, electricity and water are shared by the seven tenants at their actual cost — never marked up. The arrangement keeps the all-in monthly figure as low as possible while removing any incentive for the house to be unnecessarily wasteful.
Because Spanish utility bills don't all arrive on the same schedule, each tenant advances €50 per month into a common pool. This absorbs the timing differences and means no one is chasing anyone else for cash.
At the end of the lease, the real total is reconciled. If the pool exceeded actual costs, the surplus is returned in equal shares. If it fell short, the difference is collected. Either way, the figures speak for themselves.
Every utility bill is uploaded to a shared Google Drive folder as it arrives. All seven students have read access at all times. The end-of-year reconciliation is therefore a formality, not a surprise — anyone curious about a particular month's electricity bill can simply open the folder.
A short list. The rest, ESADE students decide.
Maria's view is that the seven students who live in the house each year are best placed to set their own day-to-day standards — quiet hours, kitchen rotation, weekend rhythm, common-area tidying between professional cleans. Students discuss and agree on what works for them at the start of each academic year, and revisit those standards as needed throughout the year. This has worked well across many cohorts.
That said, a few things are not negotiable. They protect the house, the neighbours, and the experience of the other tenants.
Within those limits, the house is genuinely yours for the academic year. Daytime guests, friends visiting from class, study groups in the annexed living room, under the covered porch, or in the garden, dinners on the terrace — all part of normal house life.