Hi guys, when you rent out the whole unit of your property,
do you change the electric and water bill account name?

Too many tenants run aways with unpaid bill cases.

Any pro and cons of doing this?

This post has been edited by InF.anime: Oct 18 2015, 12:07 AM

Anyone doing this?

As a tenant renting a whole unit - last 4 places I've rented the electricity bill and water have always stayed in the landlords name.

Gf owns a unit she rents out, bill is in her name - she checks TNB online and reminds the tenant to pay if the balance builds up.

If the bill is in the tenant's name, the liability is with the tenant. If the bill is in your name, the liability is with you.

Sometimes, TNB will check and discover that a meter has been tampered with. Then they might attempt to recover a year of two of backdated bills, plus penalty, this could amount to RM10-20k. If the tenant who did the tampering already moved out, TNB is not going to listen to your protest that "it was the tenant who did it". They will ask "how come you didn't get the tenant to open an account under their own name"? "Every month, we bill you and you get them to pay right? Now, we bill you and you get them to pay as well. Because you didn't get them to open an account, we have no contract with them and we cannot sue them. Our agreement is only with you. It's not our problem that you cannot find them now".

If the tenant opens an account in their own name, TNB then would not sue you. While this gets you off legally, in practice, there are problems. If your tenant leaves leaving a large unpaid bill, bigger than the deposit, TNB may simply refuse to supply any more electricity to this address.

Alternatively, if your tenant uses a lot of electricity, sometimes TNB will demand additional deposit. Who's going to pay this additional deposit? You or the tenant? The tenant will not want to pay, because the account is in your name, he will not get back the money when he leaves the tenancy. You could pay, but then your money will be stuck at TNB doing nothing. I don't know how much interest TNB pays out these days. This used to be a bigger problem in the past when TNB paid no interest at all, and FD rates at the banks was running around 10%.

Make it tenant's liability if you can.

But if it's a group of students, usually they won't run halfway or delay payment. Students are more naive and less complicated, though some landlords won't like their house being messed by students.

Depends very much on what kind of property that is.

Then, when renting out, you don't have to collect the half month rental deposit for utilities.

Most still will. But it can be reduced slightly.

BTW: I always thought utilities deposit is equivalent to one month's rental rather half a month. My experience is more on the commercial side. Don't tell me I overpaid on the utilities deposit when I rented a house a couple of years back. The landlord asked for one month's utilities deposit, and I thought it normal, and didn't ask for it to be reduced.

Have experience tenant not paying bill for 2 months, and I have to use the utility to clear the bill when they moving out. Even worst I heard have tenants not paying bill and rental and refused to move out.

Let's say if account is under tenant's name, but they didn't clear the bill. Will I have problem to resume the electric supply after they moved out?

I believe both way also have its pros and cons?

This post has been edited by InF.anime: Oct 19 2015, 04:42 PM

frankly speaking, so far our rental units have been under our name (landlord).

but if you ask me it makes good sense to put TNB and water (for those with individual water meters) under tenant name. For water bill with those under bulk water meter scheme (ie unmigrated condo water system) then you should notify the condo JMB/MC about the tenancy status.

In fact, IIRC, TNB has also made some changes to their process whereby landlords are now "digalakkan" to put TNB account under tenant name, so do check with TNB directly re this.

Here is a tnb facebook posting:

https://www.facebook.com/TNBCareline/posts/528743043806026



This post has been edited by corleone74: Oct 19 2015, 04:54 PM

Very good sharing.. thank you

Yes, make good sense to put under tenant's name.
But seems like most landlord are taking the risk as most tenants don't like the hassle to open new accounts.

It varies, landlord can ask for a fixed amount, especially if it's commercial with high usage. Well, no certainty on this.
Half month is the norm for residential. You can collect 1 month, but then 2 mths adv + 1 mth rental (commission to agents) + 1 mth deposits, a RM2.5k will become RM10k at one go. RM8.75k looks way more attractive, after all, deposit shall be returned it's not ours to keep.

Its best to change the name, so if tenant doesnt pay your property wont be blacklisted.

Actually is most landlord doesnt knows about it, especially older generations.
Also if the landlord are renting out individual tenant instead of master tenant, who want to be the account holder?