Legal Comment by Mark Illidge of Hinterland Lawyers

April 2008

The Water and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2007 was passed by Parliament on 15 November 2007 and will commence upon proclamation of the Act. Whilst this legislation amends a number of Acts, I will consider its impact on residential and commercial tenancies.

Currently the Residential Tenancies Act does not allow landlords to recover water consumption charges from the tenant unless the premises are separately metered or water is delivered. This Act also provides that the landlord is responsible for the cost of a reasonable amount of the water service charges for the premises.

The Bill will amend the Residential Tenancies Act to allow water consumption charges to be fully recovered by the landlord from the tenant, provided that the premises are water-efficient. The legislation will regulate a prescribed level of efficiency for toilets, shower heads and internal cold water taps. In the event that the premises are not water-efficient, water consumption charges representing a reasonable quantity of water will be able to be recovered from a tenant. Landlords will not be able to recover from the tenant any water service charges that are a "fixed charge" for supplying water to the premises.

Under the amendments, water leaks will be considered emergency repairs and tenants will be entitled to arrange repairs by a suitably qualified person if the landlord’s nominated emergency repair person can’t be contacted.

The amendments will not take effect until 1 April 2009 for existing tenancy agreements.

The proposed amendments will also make it mandatory to install sub-meters in all new commercial and residential community title schemes from 1 January 2008. The recovery of water charges will continue to be the subject of negotiation between the landlord and tenant in commercial premises.

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