Best way for a landlord to manage utility bills in multi occupancy household

Victor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121992232#Comment_121992232

Tax is paid on profits. If the bills are included in the rent and the bills are paid from this, there is no extra income, so no extra tax.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121993412#Comment_121993412

If it were me I wouldn't be a fan of leaving utilities to the tenants, to much risk of them walking

SodiumCooled

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121994115#Comment_121994115

If it’s exact amounts and paid separately to rent I agree, if it’s picking an average number for all bills and the same every month then I think it a bit of a mess.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121994849#Comment_121994849

If they walk the bill will follow them it’s not going to come back on the LL, it’s a very good reason to have the bills in a tenants name for this reason.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121994849#Comment_121994849

That is the benefit of the tenants being responsible for utilities, the account is theirs, not the op’s, if they walk, the account/debt walks with them. If the op retains the utilities in his name and the tenants walk, or worse, stop paying rent, the op bears the responsibility for payment of the utilities.

I really can’t understand why anyone would advise the op to keep the utilities in his name and start messing around with paying it, then recovering the cost from the tenants. If he makes it a condition of the rentals from the start that all utilities have to be in the tenants names and they are responsible for working out monthly payments, like all of us have done in house shares, then there is no messing, the op just takes in the rental income. If they don’t like that arrangement, fine, move on, someone else will take the rooms, it’s a LLs market.

mrslancaster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121992537#Comment_121992537

Agree about the tax treatment - some extra accounting for the OP if they decide to manage tenant utilities.

Also agree that it's odd the way some house-shares still operate here and that goes back to pre-rtb times when L&T rules were widely ignored and owners called the shots. Now tenancies are enforced by the rtb and people are still getting to grips with different aspects of what they can and can't do. Anyone with a tenancy has a right to choose their own housemates, the owner should have no part in that after initial vetting and granting of the tenancy.

As for utilities, tenants should manage those directly.