In January 2012 the Minister approved Community Housing Water Charging Ministerial Guidelines (PDF, 50KB). The Residential Tenancies Act 2010, Section 139, makes provision for water usage charges for tenancies covered under a social housing tenancy agreement. The Act provides for a social housing tenant to pay water charges as determined in accordance with ministerial guidelines.
The guidelines provide high level policy advice to community housing providers to assist them to develop fair and transparent operational policy regarding tenant water charging.
- Levying water charges is not compulsory; community housing providers can decide whether or not to charge for water based on their own organisational needs.
- Residents in crisis accommodation and transitional housing without residential tenancy agreements (or where tenants cannot afford to pay social housing rents) are exempt from water charges.
- Where community housing providers charge for water it is based on the actual cost of water as charged by water authorities – providers cannot collect more in tenant charges than they pay to the water authority
- Providers have a number of methods available for calculating the tenant’s share of the total water bill
- Where community housing providers choose to levy water charges they should ensure that the Ministerial Guidelines and their own water charging policy is made available to all tenants and is publicly available.
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