UKC

I recently moved out of the house I own in London and now live in the Middle East. I have rented the entire house out to a family (e.g. I'm not renting it by the room), but have just realilsed that I'm still paying the waterbill. Is is standard for this to be included in the rent or should they be paying this? The contract I have with them isn't detailed enough to qualify this.

In reply to deanr:
Its not usually covered by the rent. My landlord paid mine by mistake for several years which I didn't complain about at the time obviously. Cancel your direct debit and transfer the bill over to your tenants name, the water company will contact them to arrange payment

In reply to deanr:

In my experience as a tenant I've always been responsible for the water bill. Unless it's laid out in the contract that I'm *not* responsible for it, I'd assume I had to pay.

In reply to deanr: As a tenant (particularly if unfurnished) I'd expect to be responsible for water, gas, and electric as well as phone etc. but not any repair/servicing/maintenance on the house or its fittings (white goods, plumbing, boiler) unless my fault.

In reply to deanr: Unless you've agreed with the tenant to include it, you don't have to pay it. So call up your water company and get it transferred.

In reply to deanr:

Sounds like a pretty crap contract then. Surely it must state that the rent is inclusive or exclusive of certain or all bills?

In reply to deanr: Thanks all, sounds pretty obvious what I'll be doing next.

The family I'm renting it to are perfect tennants, so I didn't want to impose something un-reasonable. I will contact them first and make them aware of the situation before tranferring the bill.

That's another issue amicably resolved by the UKC masses!

In reply to deanr:

When I rented a flat in 2000-2003, the rent included water. This might have been because the water wasn't metered, and the landlord didn't want it to be - as far as I am aware, a water company can insist on installing a meter when the occupier changes -whereas they couldn't if the landlord kept their name on the bill.

In reply to Nutkey: thanks, we are on a water meter, so they should pay the charges.

In reply to deanr:

Definitely not standard. Normally if you rent a whole house, no bills are included, whereas if you rent individual rooms they might or might not be, depending on what the landlord decides before the contract is signed (the default being not included).

Neil

In reply to JH74:

Seconded.

However, a reasoned answer to your question is here:

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/consumer_e/consumer_energy_and_water_...