Unpaid water bills worth £500m of tenants are now being passed on to the landlords causing them to unite in anger to protest against such a possible move.
The British Property Federation (BPF) and Residential Landlords Association (RLA) responded to the Walker Review of the government’s water charging calling it unfair.
Prohibition on cutting off or limiting supply makes debt collection harder for water companies. Increased metering has been proposed to conserve water and the
Government’s decision to pay housing benefit to social housing tenants instead of the landlords who usually pay the bills has escalated the problem. Having a lot of unpaid debt themselves, small landlords will be burdened further as we already have problems collecting money which is due to us.
Landlords are suggesting alternative solutions to help with the problem such as water companies working with landlords to identify when tenancies started and finished instead of issuing bills to ‘the occupier’. As landlords we must find it easy to give such notice and water companies must promptly act on the information received.
Authorising local authorities to pass council tax bills to landlords in case the tenant cannot be identified has also been proposed.
It seems as though landlords will fight this inequity tooth and nail for the gross injustice it represents.
