Water water everywhere - but who foots the bill?

 With utility bills increasing for a variety of reasons, including more people now working from home due to the pandemic, it is not a surprise to know that more and more tenants are looking at ways to manage their money and decrease their bills.

One of the most common approaches for a tenant is to switch utility supplier as soon as they move into a new rental property.

Now, the misconception here by some landlords and agents alike, is that the tenant cannot switch supplier without the landlord written permission.

This is NOT correct......the tenant, as the bill payer has every legal right to chose whichever supplier they wish to suit their budget and the landlord cannot object... in some very rare circumstances they can, but these are not worth mentioning here.

In addition to this, tenants can also request a change of meter and 9/10 this too will not require the landlords written permission, this includes, Smart meters, prepayment meters and most importantly Water meters.

Now, the law does have some weight here when it comes to water meters, the Water Industry Act 1999 s11 states that a clause in a tenancy agreement cannot stop a tenant who pay their own water bills from choosing to have a water meter, however, most if not all water companies will not install a water meter for anyone who has a tenancy of less than 6 months.

But most importantly for landlords is the Flood and water management act 2010 S45, which is very clear that the LANDLORD has a legal obligation to advise the water company that the tenant is liable for the water bill during the tenancy.

If the landlord does not do this, even if the tenancy agreement states clearly that the tenant is liable, the water company do not have to acknowledge this and can/will hold the landlord liable for payment of any water bill while the tenant was in occupation, regardless of how long that tenant was in occupation.

An example of this was when i served my time at CAB, i had a landlord who had debt collectors after him for £24,000 this was a water bill that a tenant of several years, the AST was blatantly clear the tenant was liable for the water bill...... but the landlord nor his agent had taken the time to directly inform the water company, so the landlord was legally liable for the bill.

These days water companies make it extremely easy for landlords, with most having an easy section on their website where you can just fill in a few boxes to advise of the tenant liability, well worth taking a few moments to do this.

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