I am currently renting a terrace house, and the landlord has a RM522 backdated IWK bill.

I am not actually living in that property, it is being used only as an office for my online business and I have two employees there.

I have been paying the half-annual RM48 bills on time, as the RM522 IWK bill was accrued by my landlord prior to my tenancy.

Today I received a Notis Tuntutan Bayaran Tunggakan from IWK demanding the RM522 payment by the first week of September, failing which they will terminate the service.

My lease is due in December anyway, and I have no plans to renew the lease on the house.

However, my concern is what happens between September - December.

I have already complained to the landlord, but he says he cannot do anything due to the current pandemic situation. (Lame excuse, I know)

Any advice here would be greatly appreciated.

The bill is addressed to the landlord being the registered owner of the property and you have rightly brought it to his attention. Those responsibile landords would have paid up.

In the event that the services is disrupted, the landlord has breached the terms of the TA and if he fails to rectified the breach, you as a tenant can withhold further rental payment.

Depending on the security deposits amount being held by landlord, he will deduct any outstanding rental from the deposits at the end of the tenancy.

As long the service is not stop by IWK, you have to continue paying the rent.

Your problem arises when the service is terminated in Nov / Dec.

Alternatively, you can inform the landlord to pay on his behalf and deduct the amount from the next rental. Not sure he will agree now.

If you have not inform him and have paid earlier, he has no choice but to accept it.

This post has been edited by mini orchard: Aug 9 2021, 05:25 PM

Had already informed the landlord about this several months ago when I got a reminder letter from IWK.

He says he is not responsible for those charges, and has been in dispute with IWK for some time.

Is IWK known for quickly cutting their service or are they slow and ineffective like the other public utilities?

I had a neighbor a long time ago who was able to get away with not paying TNB and Astro for years despite repeated notices and lawyer letters...

As the registered owner, he cannot claimed he is not responsible. Anyway, that is not for you to be concerned which his problem with IWK.

When service is blocked, then he has breached the TA.

How efficient is IWK, I cant comment. You only want to ensure that your stay is not disrupted by the service.

I think you can only deal with landlord again when IWK actually block the service. In mean time, continue to pay rent until the term expires.

Do remember to give proper notice as per tnc in the TA.

This post has been edited by mini orchard: Aug 9 2021, 06:08 PM

Thank you

To protect yourself, keep whatever correspondence/whatsapp/email (better to use email) that he is well aware of the problem and he did not fulfill his obligations to avoid any issues later.

old uncle la, no email or anything...
just fortunate to have WhatsApp to communicate with him

Make sure you keep those properly then. Later if got dispute... tons of issues later. He say got dispute... but you will be the one affected.