• Home
  • About
  • Clinic
  • Training
  • Eco Landlords
  • Landlord Law

The Landlord Law Blog

From landlord and tenant lawyer Tessa Shepperson

  • Home
  • Posts
  • News & comment
  • Cases
  • Tenants
    • Penalties for breaching tenancy rules
    • 15 Places for tenant help
  • Clinic
  • Podcasts
    • Interview
    • Surgery
  • Series
    • Analysis
    • should law and justice be free
    • HMO Basics
    • Tenancy Agreements 33 days
    • Airbnb
    • Grounds for Eviction
    • The Deregulation Act Explained
    • Tips

Tenancy Agreements 33 days of tips – Day 18 – Bills

May 10, 2017 by Tessa Shepperson

Tenancy Agreements 33 days

Dealing with responsibility for bills in your tenancy agreement

All properties have expenses which need to be paid, such as utilities and Council tax.  It is important to be clear in your tenancy agreement about who pays what.

There are a number of approaches that can be taken:-

1. Tenants are responsible for everything.

This can best be done if the tenants are renting the whole house or flat. You need to make sure that the utilities are all put into the tenants name, and then if they are not paid, you will not be liable.

Sometimes an account cannot be put into the names of the tenants. For example the water meter may serve more than one property. Or there may be several tenants sharing who are unwilling to have the utilities put in their name as it will potentially make them liable for the whole lot. Here you need to have a procedure where you invoice them regularly. The tenancy should make it clear that they are, collectively, responsible for paying these bills, not you.

However as these accounts will be in your name, you will be responsible  to the supplier, whether or not the tenants re-imburse you.

2. Tenants are responsible for some payments, landlords for others

For example sometimes the landlord will pay the water rates and the Council Tax (which will be included in their rent), but will want the tenants to pay everything else, such as electric and gas. Again, set out clearly those that you will pay and those that they pay. Make sure that your rent is set at a sufficient level to cover the payment of the items you are responsible for.

Note that you need to be careful if you are paying for water, as it is not unknown for tenants with a grudge to deliberately drive up the bill by turning the taps on for long periods.

3. Landlord responsible for most bills

This is sometimes done, particularly where the tenants rent a room in a shared house. We have a special agreement for this on Landlord Law which I created at the request of some of our members.

The agreement has a schedule where the landlord lists all the bills he is paying (anything else is the tenants’ responsibility), and the rent figure stipulates how much of the rent is attributed to these. Then the terms and conditions provide that if the sum paid by the landlord for these items turns out to be much higher than the sum allowed for in the rent, the landlord can increase the rent to cover the difference, subject to providing proof if the tenant requests it.

Whatever arrangement you have, it needs to be clearly set down so everyone knows what they are responsible for paying.

Some specific bills

Water – Water authorities have had such problems with tenants running up bills and then leaving without paying, that, in Wales, there are now special rules which provide for landlords to give information about the tenants or be jointly liable with them for the cost.  No doubt similar rules will come into force in due course in England.

Council Tax – as there are sometimes restrictions on whether landlords can pass the cost of this on to tenants, it is a good idea to deal with Council Tax in a separate clause.  Then if this is found invalid (and the clause become unenforceable) it will not affect payment of other utilities.

Landlord Law Tenancy AgreementsNB Find out more about my Tenancy Agreement Service on Landlord Law

We have several agreements which provide for landlords to pay the bills as well as agreements with more standard arrangements.

click-here

 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Filed Under: Tips and How to Tagged With: Tenancy Agreement 33 days

Scroll down for the comments

Landlord Law for Landlords

Are you a landlord, unsure how to manage your properties in these uncertain times?  My Landlord Law service can help you in this crisis by providing online help and guidance and giving you one to one advice in the members' forum area.

>> Find out more about Landlord Law.


IMPORTANT: Please check the date of the post above - remember, if it is an old post, the law may have changed since it was written.

You should always get independent legal advice before taking any action.

Notes on comments:

For personal landlord and tenant related problems, please use our >> Blog Clinic.
Note that we do not publish all comments, please >> click here to read our terms of use and comments policy. Comments close after three months.

Keep up with the news on Landlord Law blog!

To get posts sent direct to your email in box click here

About Tessa Shepperson

Tessa is a specialist landlord & tenant solicitor and the creator of this site! She is a director of Landlord Law Services which now hosts Landlord Law and other services for landlords and property professionals.

« If a tenant’s resident landlord is believed to be entering via a communicating door.
My landlord wants to sell the property and give me one month to move out »

If you rent property - you need a tenancy agreement!

The 33 days of Tips

Tenancy Agreements Tips During 2017 I published a weekly series of tips on tenancy agreements.

You will find an index here, along with other tenancy agreement related resources.

Index

  • Day 1: Introduction
  • Day 2: Why use one?
  • Day 3: Tenancy or license?
  • Day 4: Tenancy types
  • Day 5: Shared houses
  • Day 6: Right to Rent
  • Day 7: Parties
  • Day 8: Addresses
  • Day 9: Guarantees
  • Day 10: Letting agents
  • Day 11: The Property
  • Day 12: Rent
  • Day 13: The Term
  • Day 14: The Deposit
  • Day 15: Inventories
  • Day 16: Unfair terms (1)
  • Day 17: Unfair terms (2)
  • Day 18: Bills
  • Day 19: Penalty Clauses
  • Day 20: Business use
  • Day 21: Repairs
  • Day 22: Insurance
  • Day 23: Notices
  • Day 24: Inspections
  • Day 25: Ending
  • Day 26: Assignment
  • Day 27: Left items
  • Day 28: Student lets
  • Day 29: Pets
  • Day 30: Preparation
  • Day 31: Renewals
  • Day 32: Reviews
  • Day 33: Finding

Get your FREE Ebook

Click to get your Free Ebook

>> Click Here for Your Free Copy

Some other services

Disclaimer

The purpose of this blog is to provide information, comment and discussion.

Although Tessa, or guest bloggers, may from time to time, give helpful comments to readers' questions, these can only be based on the information given by the reader in his or her comment, which may not contain all material facts.

Any comments or suggestions provided by Tessa or any guest bloggers should not, therefore be relied upon as a substitute for legal advice from a qualified lawyer regarding any actual legal issue or dispute.

Nothing on this website should be construed as legal advice or perceived as creating a lawyer-client relationship (apart from the Fast Track block clinic service - so far as the questioners only are concerned).

Please also note that any opinion expressed by a guest blogger is his or hers alone, and does not necessarily reflect the views of Tessa Shepperson, or the other writers on this blog.

Cookies

You can find out more about our use of 'cookies' on this website here.

Associated sites

Landlord Law Services
Tenant Law
Eco Landlords
Your Law Store

Legal

Landlord Law Blog is © 2006 – 2020 Tessa Shepperson.

Note that Tessa is an introducer for Alan Boswell Insurance Brokers and will get a commission from sales made via links on this website.

© 2006–2021 Tessa Shepperson | Rainmaker Platform | Contact Page | Log in

This website or its third-party tools use cookies which are necessary to its functioning and required to improve your experience. By clicking the consent button, you agree to allow the site to use, collect and/or store cookies.
I accept