Guest blog: Time to sort water issues once and for all

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There have been countless reports this year of Auckland’s rental property shortage.

Tuesday, August 14th 2012, 12:00AM 13 Comments

by The Landlord

Obviously this doesn’t have just one simple cause.

Rising costs, low returns for the capital invested and an environment that is perceived as hostile to private landlords combine to make landlording a less attractive business to be in.

One of the ongoing hassles with residential rental administration is dealing with water.

While electricity and telephone services are the tenant’s concern, the water supply has become a bit of a mongrel, the joint concern of both.

Back in the days when things were simple, the council rates bill for a property would include a fixed sum for the year for the supply of the water and other water-related charges

Over time, this system was held to be environmentally unfriendly, as it held no penalty for those householders who used or wasted exorbitant amounts of water.  Councils began to install water meters so that water use could be monitored. Water monitored could be water charged, and landlords began receiving invoices for the water charges incurred by their tenants.

To compound this developing problem, there was no standard charging system adopted by all councils.

All these changes left the Residential Tenancies Act, the bible of the residential landlord, somewhat outdated.

The Tenancy Tribunal’s current ruling is that water supplied can be charged to the tenant, but only if a meter is installed that measures water supplied solely to that tenant. Wastewater charges are also the tenant’s responsibility. But where the wastewater is based on a fixed daily sum and where there is a daily service charge then these costs are held to be the landlord’s responsibility.

Compound that with Watercare insisting that the water supply costs are, in the final analysis, the responsibility of the landlord and we have a real mess.

The landlord receives the account, normally pays the full amount of both variable and fixed costs to Watercare, and sends a copy of the account to the tenant itemizing the variable charges that the tenant owes.

When the due date arrives, often the Tenant has not paid their share. This leaves the landlord only the option of issuing a 14-day notice under the RTA, and eventually having to lodge a claim to try to get a refund of the money due and already paid out.

All this takes time. I have just spent three hours sorting out water accounts and sending letters to the tenants

With the onset of monthly billing by Watercare this is only going to get worse.

The usual answer given by those not personally facing this problem is to say ‘‘work out the water costs and just include it in the rent’’. This is a facile answer on several grounds.

Firstly the original intention for the installation of water meters was to create an incentive by those who actually use the water to conserve water.

If the tenant as end user is not paying for any water they waste, then this incentive fails. Secondly, any sudden increase in water usage can indicate problems with the water reticulation system in the property. Leaky taps, worn hot-water cylinder valves, overflowing toilet cisterns. If the tenant has no financial penalty when they see these problems develop, they have no incentive to notify the landlord and arrange repair.

The RTA needs to be amended to make it clear that all water-related are solely the responsibility of the tenant. Secondly, Government action is needed to compel water supply authorities to accept residential tenants as their customers.

Action in this matter will reduce the administrative load on landlords, provide a real incentive for tenants to conserve water, and go some way to restraining further increases in rental levels. - Peter Lewis is an Auckland landlord.

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