I’ll concede the point about cost of living, but not the overall one about paying expenses.
Though I don’t think we’ve heard definitively from the OP about whether or not he’s currently in school.
…
Your parents have terrible financial skills, but you don’t need us to tell you that. Learn from their example and make sure you handle your own finances differently (which again, you probably don’t need us to tell you). We find role models in both positive and negative behaviour from others!
Congratulations on getting your first job, I hope it’s going well for you. Now that you are in full-time employment, I don’t think it is unreasonable for your parents to charge you a nominal board, and £50 a week sounds reasonable for that.
Have you considered when you might leave home? Or are you planning on living at home until you have saved enough money to put a deposit on a house? Have you discussed these plans with your parents? I’m just wondering - would they still expect you to chip in on these loan repayments if you were no longer living at home? And if not, would they be able to meet the repayment requirements themselves?
Oh! Well, there you go. 
So yeah, he left school to work full time. He can contribute. My parents probably would have kicked me out of the house (encouraged me to live my life as an independent adult) had I done the same.
Longshanks: when you say you left full time education, do you mean secondary school or university? Do you have a (I think I’m using the right term) GCSE?
It’s not unreasonable to pitch in, and while your parents may be frustrating, there really isn’t anything you are going to be able to do to change them.
You can leave school at 16 (GCSE level) or 18 (A Level, which you need to get into university). You wouldn’t be at university at 17 unless you were some sort of child prodigy.
GCSEs are awarded for each subject you study up to age 16 - anything between 5 and 12 subjects depending on how brilliant you are. On average, you need at least five GCSEs to continue certain studies beyond 16 or qualify for certain jobs. The OP may, or may not, have passed his GCSEs.
My response was more to the hypothetical 17 year old in Bozuit’s post. It was suggested that…
Whereas I think it is perfectly reasonable to request 20%.
If they specifically want to tie that 20% to the taking out of a loan I’d agree it is rather strange. The correct response would be
“of course I need to pay for my board…here is 20% but this has nothing to do with your loan. What you choose to do with the board I give you is up to you”
I agree. I think £200 per month is reasonable to be paying to your parents for household expenses, and your parents happen to be using that money for the renovation. But I would make it clear to them that you are paying that money while you live with them. If you move out in a year, you are not going to continue paying £200 a month for the renovation.
I also would like to know if they paid you back for your life savings from their garden studio flat. That just sounds bonkers to me that parents would borrow money from their child for something like that. I could understand parents borrowing money from their young children in dire circumstances, like the family needs to pay for food or electricity and the parents have no other way to pay. But to borrow money for unnecessary construction is very surprising.
Your parents obviously have an unusual obsession with construction and some problems with borrowing money, but I don’t think there’s anything you can do to fix that. All you can do is set firm boundaries on how much involved you are going to get with it.
I’d add another consideration: just how long is it going to take for your parents to pay off that loan, and is the job you’re currently working reasonably secure for that period of time? If yes, chip in the 200 pounds/month (consider it your rent). But if your job isn’t all that secure AND your parents would be counting on your contribution to pay off the home improvement loan, there’s trouble ahead!
Thanks for the clarification. I don’t know much about the UK’s public school system.
Does this mean that a student not intending to go to college or to a trade school is generally going to leave at 16? Is this common over there?
Finally, a question for Longshanks: the life savings money that your parents took - was this money that they had put aside for you, that you had saved personally, or that another relative had put aside for you?
There is no way you should contribute to their loan. However, you should tell them you will contribute the 200 for as long as you reside with them and they can do with it what they will. If you choose to leave before the loan is paid off, it becomes their problem.
Do not commit to their loan. That would just be foolish.
Since the OP regards about $300 a month as a token amount, I’m guessing his living expenses are minimal. He’s working full time and living at home and on that basis paying rent would be reasonable. Otherwise it’d be exploitative for parents to insist their teenage son help them pay off their home repair loan. There’s obviously some broader mistrust here over finances and that might be a discussion worth having.
Moderator Note
I edited the title to add info and be a bit more descriptive.
– Ellen
Actually young people need to stay in education until they are 17 now, and this will soon be 18. Cite. However, the definition of education is broad, and methods of enforcement are ‘gentle’. Longshanks may be doing an apprenticeship.
Wow, I have totally missed this piece of legislation.
**Foxy40 **said it better than I could. It’s more than fair for you to pay rent/board, and for your parents to do whatever the hell they want to do with it. It is beyond UNfair for them to expect you to contribute to their loan repayment if you’re no longer living with them.
I’d advise finding your own place ASAP and avoiding this whole mess entirely, if that’s at all possible for you to do.
Well before the latest legislation that Alexandra has pointed out above, you certainly could leave at 16 if you felt like it and many did, and still can (presumably if it’s classed as an apprenticeship or you study part time). The traditional choices are:
16: Do you GCSEs (pass or fail) and leave to get a job or an apprenticeship or sit around being a bum
16: Fail your GCSEs and go back to school for a year or two to retake
16: Pass you GCSEs and continue at school or sixth form college to do your A Levels
16: Pass your GCSEs and go to college to do something like an NVQ (National Vocational Qualification in something that trains you for a trade, sort of a replacement for traditional apprenticeships)
18: Fail your A Levels, leave school and try and get a job
18: Pass your A Levels, leave school and stand a better chance of getting a job
18: Pass your A Levels and go to University to do a degree.
Clearly this is a broad brush of the options available to you but gives you a general idea.
My advice is the same as Aspidistra’s
If you are working full time and not in school you should pay your parents something towards room and board.
But I’d want to be clear that you are paying room and board - when you move out, you will stop paying room and board. You are not committing to paying £200 a month for five years so they can build an attic. If that means they want to demand £250 for room and board, that is reasonable.
And I agree with Manda Jo, a lot of things can happen before you inherit their home. If you are seventeen, chances are your parents aren’t in their 80s about to drop dead. (I’m 47, my parents just sold the family home last week for a townhouse - the U.S. tends to be more mobile than Europe in terms of buying and selling real estate - they are both in their 70s). So I wouldn’t look at contributions towards their renovations as investments in your future property.
Well, it’s not usually that cut-and-dried with an adult child paying rent to their parents while they live at home, but that’s kind of the point - as I said before, it helps to move the relationship into a more mature form, rather than the parents supporting the child and the child having little say in things.
Thanks for the clarification (and good for you for getting a good job and getting on with your life). If you can, I think you need to stand firm with your parents and make an arrangement for rent but not taking on any responsibility for their loans. The idea is kind of ridiculous to me - you have no say in how they spend their money and take out loans, but you are supposed to somehow be responsible for paying it back? No way. If someone suggested that to me, I’d laugh in their face.
I agree with everyone who says it’s OK to pay rent, but don’t touch the loan with a ten foot pole.
With the number of resources they’ve been tapping (child’s savings, bank loan, relatives, friends, companies, and I don’t know what to call that common pot 'o cash arrangement - and how reliable is that going to be?) I’d say that they have made a habit and hobby of cadging money from anyone that they think they can beg or argue it out of. It would be a very bad idea to continue to be someone that they can tap. If you allow that, they will forever see any savings you accumulate as something that is one argument away from being theirs to use.
I think the concensus for this thread is Rent - Yes, Loan - NO!
You haven’t said that they’re asking you to, but do not sign or co-sign the loan. If they need a certain amount of income to qualify with the bank, you can sign a separate rental agreement to show the bank that they’ll have the money coming in. Do not touch the loan in any way.
For the sake of your sanity and future retirement, the Bank of Longshanks must be officially closed. Even if they never believe it, you will have a happier life if you know that the BOL is closed.