Who pays for water and electricity consumption by a contractor during work on a rental property?

The logical answer to this question is of course that these costs are at the expense of the contractor's client. This creates an inherent link with the repair obligation.

The landlord is required to provide a property that can be used for the purpose for which it is intended. In this case: for habitation. Therefore, the landlord is in principle required to carry out all necessary repairs.

However, this does not apply to minor repairs. These are at the expense of the tenant. An implementing decree to the Flemish Residential Tenancy Decree describes and lists these minor repairs in more detail. In addition, the tenant is required to carry out repairs that are necessary due to use contrary to the destination or use of the home as a good householder. The tenant also has a reporting obligation: he must inform the landlord about necessary repairs.

However, repairs that are only necessary due to age or force majeure are always at the expense of the landlord.

Given this distribution, work for which a contractor needs access to electricity and water will usually be at the expense of the landlord. After all, it will more often be about larger works and less about minor repairs.

If the landlord must engage a contractor during an ongoing rental contract, he has every interest in making good mutual agreements with the tenant. Only when it comes to urgent repairs is the tenant obliged to tolerate them (cf. article 27 VWHD). In all other cases, the tenant could in principle refuse execution, due to infringement of quiet enjoyment.

An agreement with the tenant is therefore useful. It is wise to also immediately make agreements about reasonable compensation for any consumption of water and electricity by the contractor.

Finally, it is undoubtedly more expensive to have to work with a generator, for example. This increases the complexity of the execution of the works and possibly even the execution period.

In other words: it is useful and interesting for both tenant and landlord to determine in advance how consumption costs are handled. It is logical that the landlord reasonably compensates the tenant for this, just as it is in our view logical that the tenant agrees to this, in order to provide reasonable cooperation to works that also benefit him.

Making agreements in advance also avoids heavy discussions afterwards about the extent of consumption. Usually that is exactly where there is disagreement, partly because afterwards the consumption is difficult to map.

The issue was recently discussed at the Private Rental Consultation Platform. In this platform, associations representing tenants, landlords and real estate professionals discuss application issues in residential tenancy. This under the chairmanship of the Flemish administration (the Agency for Housing in Flanders).

The conclusion of the Consultation Platform was:

In summary, the landlord must compensate for the additional consumption. He must pay reasonable compensation for the consumption costs. If the tenant nevertheless refuses, there may be abuse of rights since he does not loyally cooperate with the landlord's repair obligation.