The rent is the number people compare. The bills are the number that decides whether they can afford the flat, and nobody asks about them until the second month.
Somebody came into the office last year having just taken a flat in Galolhu at thirteen thousand five hundred a month, pleased with themselves, because the same size in the next building was fifteen. Two months later the total was higher than fifteen and they could not work out why.
The flat paid a share of a building electricity meter. The share had never been defined in writing. In the hot months the building's bill went up, four of the six flats had air conditioners running all night, and the share that arrived at their door had nothing to do with what they had used.
This is the most common expensive surprise in renting here, so here is what to ask before you sign anything.
First: does this flat have its own electricity meter, and its own water meter? Ask for both separately. A flat can have one and not the other. If the answer is yes to both, you are in a predictable flat and you can budget. If the answer is a share, ask how the share is calculated, ask to see the last three months, and ask for the method to be written into the agreement. A share that is not defined will be defined by whoever is collecting, in a month when everybody is unhappy.
Second: who reads the meters and when? It should be both of you, together, on the day you move in, with the numbers written down and signed. That five minutes is the only protection you will ever have against a bill that was already running before you arrived.
Third: is there a tank pump, and who pays to run it and to fix it? On upper floors there is one and it matters. A pump that fails is a flat with no water, and the question of who pays for it should not be asked for the first time on that day.
Fourth: what is the arrangement for the tank cleaning? Twice a year is right in this climate. If nobody can tell you when it was last done, the answer is that it has not been.
Fifth: the stairs and the lift. This is not a bill but it is a cost. A fourth floor with no lift is a different flat from a fourth floor with one, in groceries, in gas bottles, in what happens when somebody in the house is unwell. Price it honestly against what you are saving.
And finally the advance and the deposit, in writing, with a receipt for every payment including cash. Most disputes we are called into are not about money that was taken unfairly. They are about money nobody wrote down.
None of this is difficult to ask. What makes it awkward is asking it in front of a landlord at a viewing when you have already decided you want the flat. So ask before the viewing, in a message, where the answer is in writing and neither of you is being put on the spot.
