Who Pays Water, Electricity & Gas Bills in a WA Rental?
Who pays water, electricity and gas bills in a WA rental? Learn the 30-day billing rule, water usage charges, shared meters and what landlords cannot pass on.
A water bill arrives for your investment property.
The tenant used the water, so you forward them the entire invoice.
Simple, right?
Not necessarily.
Western Australian rental rules distinguish between usage charges, service charges, rates and other fees. There are also specific requirements governing how landlords recover utility costs from tenants.
One of the most important is surprisingly easy to miss:
If the landlord receives a utility bill and wants the tenant to pay their share, written notice generally needs to be provided to the tenant within 30 days of the landlord receiving that bill.
Miss that deadline and the tenant may not have to pay the charge. Paying bills, rates and utilities when renting; Living in a rental home - Tenant’s guide 2
For landlords managing several properties, that makes utility billing more than an accounting task.
It is also a tenancy-compliance task.
Important: This article provides general information about residential tenancies in Western Australia and is not legal advice. Always check current WA Consumer Protection guidance and your tenancy agreement for your particular circumstances.
Who pays the water bill in a WA rental?
The basic division is:
Tenant: water they consume.
Landlord: water rates and service charges.
WA Consumer Protection states that tenants can be charged for the water they actually use, while the landlord remains responsible for annual water rates and service charges. Paying bills, rates and utilities when renting; Living in a rental home - Tenant’s guide 2
That distinction matters because a Water Corporation invoice can contain more than just the tenant’s consumption.
You cannot simply assume:
Water bill = tenant’s bill.
You need to identify which portion can legitimately be passed on.
What water charges can the tenant be asked to pay?
Generally, the tenant can be charged for their water consumption.
The landlord remains responsible for costs such as water rates and service charges. Paying bills, rates and utilities when renting; Renting out your property - A landlord’s guide (April 2026)
For a separately metered property, determining consumption is relatively straightforward.
The landlord should have accurate meter readings so the tenant is charged only for water consumed during their tenancy.
Consumer Protection recommends arranging a water meter reading at the beginning and end of the tenancy and recording it in the Property Condition Report or tenancy agreement. Paying bills, rates and utilities when renting
That becomes particularly important when tenants change.
Without an opening and closing meter reading, disagreements about who consumed what can become unnecessarily difficult.
The 30-day rule landlords should know
This is probably the most useful rule in this article.
Where the landlord receives the utility bill and intends to recover the tenant’s consumption charge, Consumer Protection says the landlord must provide the tenant with written notice within 30 days of receiving the bill.
If the landlord does not provide the notice within that timeframe, the tenant does not have to pay the charge. Paying bills, rates and utilities when renting; Living in a rental home - Tenant’s guide 2
That means this approach can cause problems:
Water bill arrives.
Landlord puts it aside.
Three months later, the landlord catches up on paperwork and invoices the tenant.
The fact that the tenant genuinely consumed the water does not make the 30-day requirement disappear.
For self-managing landlords, utility bills should therefore go into the same category as rent increases and formal tenancy notices:
Record the date received and deal with them promptly.
What information must the landlord give the tenant?
Simply sending a message saying:
“You owe $183 for water.”
may not be enough.
Consumer Protection says the written notice should explain the tenant’s consumption and charge.
For a metered service, this includes information such as:
- the meter reading;
- the charge per metered unit;
- the total consumption charge; and
- any applicable GST component.
Where there is no separate meter, the calculation should follow the method agreed in the tenancy agreement. Paying bills, rates and utilities when renting; Renting out your property - A landlord’s guide (April 2026)
The objective is straightforward.
The tenant should be able to understand how you calculated the amount you are asking them to pay.
Can a landlord charge the tenant the water account fee?
Generally, no.
Consumer Protection’s current landlord guide says only the consumption cost can be passed on to the tenant, rather than other costs such as supply or account fees. Renting out your property - A landlord’s guide (April 2026)
So if the invoice contains:
- water consumption;
- annual service charges;
- account fees; and
- other owner-related charges,
you should not simply forward the total.
Separate the tenant’s legitimate consumption component from the landlord’s costs.
What about council rates?
Council rates are a landlord expense.
Consumer Protection states that tenants are not liable for council rates where the tenancy agreement was made, renewed or extended after 1 July 2013. Paying bills, rates and utilities when renting
For ordinary current residential tenancies, that means council rates should not be passed on to the tenant as another property expense.
What about strata fees?
The same general principle applies.
The landlord cannot simply recover their strata ownership expenses from the tenant because the tenant occupies the property.
Consumer Protection’s current landlord guide specifically says charges for common areas in a strata-titled complex cannot be passed on to the tenant as utility consumption. Renting out your property - A landlord’s guide (April 2026)
Who pays electricity in a rental?
For a separately metered property, the tenant will usually establish an account directly with the electricity provider.
In that situation the arrangement is relatively simple:
The tenant pays for their electricity connection and consumption directly.
But some landlords retain the electricity account in their own name.
Where that happens, Consumer Protection says the landlord can recover the tenant’s consumption costs, but cannot add costs such as supply or administration charges. Paying bills, rates and utilities when renting
Again, distinguish between:
what the tenant consumed
and
the costs associated with owning or maintaining the service.
Who pays gas?
Gas follows similar principles.
Where the property has a separately metered mains gas connection, the tenant will commonly arrange and pay for their own gas consumption.
Where the landlord retains the account or another arrangement applies, the tenancy agreement should clearly explain how the tenant’s usage will be calculated. Paying bills, rates and utilities when renting; Living in a rental home - Tenant’s guide 2
If the property does not have mains gas and uses bottled gas, the tenancy agreement should state who is responsible for arranging and paying for the supply. Living in a rental home - Tenant’s guide 2
Don’t wait until the first empty gas bottle to decide who was supposed to pay.
What if electricity or water is shared between properties?
Shared meters require more care.
Examples include:
- a granny flat sharing the main house’s meter;
- multiple dwellings on one lot;
- some strata arrangements; or
- properties with sub-meters.
Consumer Protection says that where a home shares a meter, the tenancy agreement should specify how the charges will be calculated.
The main account generally remains in the landlord’s name, with tenants invoiced according to the calculation specified in their agreements. Paying bills, rates and utilities when renting
That calculation should be agreed before the bill arrives.
Trying to invent a “fair” split afterwards creates obvious scope for dispute.
What about a sub-meter?
Where a property uses a sub-meter, the main utility account should remain in the landlord’s name.
The landlord can read the sub-meter and invoice the tenant for their consumption component.
Consumer Protection says the landlord cannot add unrelated costs such as supply or administration charges. Paying bills, rates and utilities when renting
Keep the readings.
A photograph of the meter showing the reading and date can be very useful evidence.
What happens when the tenant moves out?
Utility accounting should form part of the end-of-tenancy process.
Where the tenant has accounts directly with utility providers, they should notify those providers that they are leaving.
Where the landlord manages the bills, Consumer Protection says the landlord should provide the tenant with the final written utility notice as soon as practicable, including relevant bills received around the end of the tenancy. Paying bills, rates and utilities when renting
This is another reason to record final meter readings.
The goal is to establish a clean division:
Tenant’s consumption ends here.
Landlord’s vacancy consumption begins here.
Who pays utilities while the property is vacant?
Once the outgoing tenant has paid their applicable consumption costs and left, the landlord is responsible for bills incurred while the property is vacant until the next tenancy begins. Paying bills, rates and utilities when renting
For example, water used for:
- cleaning;
- reticulation;
- maintenance;
- preparing the property; or
- work performed between tenancies
should not simply be added to the former tenant’s bill.
Good meter records make this easy to establish.
What about a hidden water leak?
This can become expensive very quickly.
An unusually large water bill may indicate a leaking pipe, toilet, reticulation system or another problem the tenant could not reasonably detect.
Older WA Consumer Protection guidance specifically distinguishes hidden water leaks from ordinary tenant consumption and notes that tenants are not responsible for consequential water costs caused by hidden leaks; once the landlord is notified of a leak, responsibility for dealing with it becomes particularly important. Maintenance of your rental property - Landlord bulletin issue 12 (September 2017)
Don’t automatically send an unusually large consumption bill to the tenant without investigating why usage increased.
A sudden spike is useful maintenance information.
Reticulation creates another grey area
Reticulation can create disputes because the tenant may technically consume the water while the landlord controls how much is used.
If the landlord locks the reticulation controller or otherwise prevents the tenant from managing watering times, it becomes difficult to argue that the tenant should bear unlimited responsibility for the resulting consumption.
Consumer Protection has previously recommended giving tenants access to reticulation controls and clearly documenting arrangements in the tenancy agreement. Maintenance of your rental property - Landlord bulletin issue 12 (September 2017)
A landlord can also choose to contribute toward water consumption where substantial watering is required to maintain gardens.
That is a commercial arrangement, but it should be written clearly into the agreement.
A practical utility-billing process for WA landlords
A simple system prevents most problems.
At the start of the tenancy
Record electricity, gas and water arrangements in the tenancy agreement.
Take opening meter readings.
Photograph the meters where practical.
Document how any shared utility will be calculated.
When a landlord-managed bill arrives
Record the date you received it.
Identify the tenant’s legitimate consumption component.
Exclude landlord costs such as rates and applicable supply/account charges.
Prepare the required written notice.
Send it within 30 days.
Keep a copy.
When the tenancy ends
Take final meter readings.
Determine the tenant’s final consumption.
Separate post-tenancy usage.
Retain the readings and final calculation with the tenancy records.
Common utility-billing mistakes
Forwarding the entire water bill.
The tenant generally pays consumption, not the landlord’s water rates and service charges.
Waiting several months before invoicing the tenant.
The 30-day written-notice requirement matters.
Adding administration fees.
A landlord cannot turn utility recovery into an additional revenue stream.
Having no method for dividing a shared meter.
The calculation should be documented in the tenancy agreement.
Failing to take meter readings.
Without them, proving the tenant’s actual consumption becomes more difficult.
Charging the outgoing tenant for vacancy usage.
Take a final reading and separate the periods properly.
Ignoring unexpectedly high consumption.
It may indicate a leak or maintenance problem.
Treat utility recovery like tenancy administration, not bookkeeping
Most utility disputes are avoidable.
The landlord does not need a complicated billing system.
They need:
clear lease terms → accurate meter readings → the original bill → the correct calculation → written notice within 30 days → good records.
For tenants, the same records make it possible to understand exactly what they are being asked to pay.
For landlords, they provide evidence that the amount recovered was genuinely the tenant’s responsibility.
And there is one final practical point worth remembering:
If you receive a utility bill for a rental property, don’t put it in the “I’ll deal with this later” pile.
That 30-day clock is already running.
For the current rules, see WA Consumer Protection — Paying bills, rates and utilities when renting. Paying bills, rates and utilities when renting; Renting out your property - A landlord’s guide (April 2026)
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