At our office we deal with a LOT of questions with regard to our water usage policy, so I have decided it was time to put this all in one of our blog posts, to make it an easy place to send people when they have questions regarding this process.

First thing is first  – read this blog post to ensure that you can pass on water usage charges to your tenant – http://www.tinacase.com.au/2017/08/02/water-usage-who-pays/

Now that you know your property is water efficient and you are able to pass your water usage costs on to your tenant, what next?

You need to send in to our office a copy of your water bill as provided by Lithgow Council.  When you forward this to our office (email to  lithgow@professionals.com.au )  you need to clearly mark the email or the bill itself with whether you have paid this bill already to the Lithgow Council.  This is vitally important, as if you have not paid the bill, we will need to pay this on your behalf from your end of month payments and if you have paid it, so that we do not pay it a second time!

**PAID BY LANDLORD**

**NOT PAID BY LANDLORD**

When our office has received your water bill, we then need to forward it on to your tenants.  Under NSW tenancy law, the tenant is provided 21 days to pay this invoice in full to our office.  The payment does not go to the Council from your tenant, this is why we need to know if you have already paid the bill or not.  If you are providing the bill to us close to the end of the month, you need to remember that you might not see the tenant pay you back for this until the next month, when their 21 days for payment is up.

If you take a look at the images below, you will see samples of our end of month statements.  In the statement on the left, it is highlighted where we have paid your water usage to Lithgow Council.  In the statement on the right, you will see it highlighted where the tenant has reimbursed you for the water charges.  Sometimes you may see both of these on the one statement, but for our purpose in this blog, I have separated them onto separate statements for clarity.

You are able to have your water bills forwarded directly to our office if you like.  This means that you do not have to remember to send your water bills to our office, or to mark it as paid or not, because we will know for sure what is happening.  If you would like to have this done, you need to sign a form for Lithgow Council and return it to our office.  You can either call us on 63525125, email us on lithgow@professionals.com.au or download the form yourself from the Council webpage using this link – http://council.lithgow.com/download/4060/

Of course, if you do not understand anything on this page, then please do not hesitate to call the office for clarification of our office process for water usage.