Landlord Liability for Water Bills - ARLA

The Water Industry Act 1999 banned water suppliers from disconnecting water supplies from consumers, even if they were failing to pay their bills. This has led to a growing problem of unpaid water bills that far outstrips the outstanding debts owed for other types of utility. According to industry figures, in 2007 19% of domestic water customers were in arrears with their water bill as compared to 5% of electricity customers and 3.7% of gas customers. It is believed that tenants represent a significant number of these overdue bills and the water companies complain that the lack of information about their future whereabouts makes it is very difficult to pursue those debts.

All this may be about to change however. Section 45 of the Flood & Water Management Act 2010 contains provisions which require landlords to give information about their tenants to the relevant water company. A failure to do so will leave the landlord jointly and severally liable for the water bill alongside the tenants.

At the moment the section has been brought into force (in October 2010) but only for the purpose of making secondary legislation to set out how it will work in practice. It is believed that this will include the setting up of websites by the various water companies to make the provision of the necessary information as simple as possible. There is scope for landlords to be exempt from liability for the provision of false or incomplete data provided that they have taken such reasonable steps as are specified in the regulations to ensure that the data is accurate. The secondary legislation will probably be in force from October 2011 and the obligation will therefore come into effect from that date.

The section contains an exemption which means that no liability will fall on an agent or trustee due to their position. The responsibility is solely that of the principal. However, agents will need to be aware of the changes and should consider how best to adjust their procedures and documents to assist their clients in dealing with the new obligations. Consideration should be given as to what information is likely to be required (full names, previous and forwarding addresses are the most probable candidates) and how this can be collected and verified for accuracy.