Who Pays Water and Electricity in a Malta Rental?

In almost every Maltese long let the tenant pays the water and electricity bill. What nobody tells you is that the same consumption can be billed at three different rates, and which one you get depends on a one-page form that only the account holder can file.

Get it wrong and a three-person flat pays roughly 500 euro a year more than it should. The law is on the tenant's side here, and it is more specific than most landlords realise.

Three tariffs, and only one of them is cheap

Water and electricity in Malta are billed by ARMS Ltd on behalf of Enemalta and the Water Services Corporation, at maximum rates set in the Electricity Supply Regulations (S.L. 545.01) and the Water Supply Regulations (S.L. 545.03). There are three bands:

• Residential - a domestic account with at least one person registered as living there. The cheapest rates, plus the eco-reduction.
• Domestic - a home with nobody registered on it. Roughly 30% more per unit of electricity, and no eco-reduction.
• Non-residential - the default for any service that was never submitted for registration as domestic or residential at all. Higher annual service fee (120 euro instead of 65 euro for a single-phase supply) and rates quoted before VAT.

The trap is in one sentence on the ARMS tariff page: "The registration of person(s) on an account is not automatic." Moving into a flat does not register you. Signing a lease does not register you. Someone has to file the form. And ARMS spells out what happens if nobody does: when the number of registered persons on an account is zero, "the tariff changes automatically to Domestic and its consumption rates apply".

You can check your own status in ten seconds. The number of registered persons is printed on the bill, on the right-hand side under the service address. If it says zero, or if it says one and three of you live there, you are overpaying.

What the gap actually costs

Take a three-person flat using 120 cubic metres of water and 4,000 kWh of electricity in a calendar year. The arithmetic below uses the maximum published tariffs, so your own bill may be slightly lower, but the gap between the columns is real.

Water. On the residential tariff the cheap band of 1.3965 euro per cubic metre runs to 33 cubic metres per registered person, so three people get 99 cubic metres before the punitive 5.1395 euro rate starts. That is 246 euro of consumption. On the domestic tariff the cheap band is 33 cubic metres for the whole property, full stop, and it costs 2.1850 euro per cubic metre. The other 87 cubic metres go at 5.1395. That is 519 euro. Same water, 273 euro more.

Electricity. The residential first band is 0.1047 euro per kWh against 0.1365 on domestic, and the second band 0.1298 against 0.1673. On 4,000 kWh that is 469 euro versus 608 euro. Then the eco-reduction comes off the residential bill only: 25% on the first 1,000 kWh per registered person and 15% on the next 750 kWh per person, which on these numbers is another 104 euro off. Net difference: 243 euro.

Together, about 516 euro a year. That is more than most tenants in Malta argue about when they haggle over the rent.

What the law makes your landlord do

Article 17 of the Private Residential Leases Act (Cap. 604) is titled "Water and electricity services" and it is unusually blunt. Sub-article (1) binds the lessor to ensure an adequate supply of water and electricity whenever a property is leased for residential use. Sub-article (2) goes further:

The lessor is bound to acknowledge the number of persons residing in the tenement for the purpose of calculating the correct tariff applicable for electricity and water supply, and to grant the lessee access to the account details relative to the leased tenement.

So registering the occupants is not a favour. It is a statutory obligation, and so is showing you the account. Then comes the part that gives it teeth. Under Article 17(3), any additional amounts the tenant incurs because the landlord did not do this are recoverable, and the tenant "may retain part of the rent due for the purpose of reimbursement of such expenses". Put plainly: a landlord who will not file the form can end up funding the difference out of the rent.

Two more provisions are worth knowing. Article 17(4) says a tenant is not bound to pay for utilities until he is given a copy of the bill, unless he has direct access to it. And Article 7(1)(f) makes void any lease clause that charges a fixed amount separate from the rent for water or electricity if that amount does not reflect actual consumption calculated at the rate reflecting primary residential use and the total number of occupants. A flat "80 euro a month for utilities" clause is exactly what that provision kills, and the tenant can ask for amounts unduly paid back.

Which is why the utilities clause belongs in the written lease alongside everything else Cap. 604 requires a Maltese lease to contain: who the account holder is, who pays, and on what reading.

Form H: the landlord's one-page job

The form is ARMS Form H, "Change in the declaration of number of persons". It is signed by the account holder, which in a rental is normally the landlord, and it asks for the account number, the ID or residence-permit numbers of everyone who will be living there, and recent water and electricity meter readings with the date they were taken.

Four things on it matter in practice:

• Changes apply from the next bill, not from your move-in date. Nothing is backdated.
• Anyone added here is automatically removed from the account where they are currently registered. Nobody can be registered at two addresses at once.
• Form H replaces the list rather than adding to it. The form warns that persons already registered on the account will be automatically removed, so every current occupant has to be written in again.
• Readings matter because the resident benefits are apportioned across the accounts you are moving between.

Form F2: what a tenant can do without the landlord

Article 17(2) ends with a proviso preserving the tenant's own route: applying for temporary recognition as a consumer and taking the bills in their own name. ARMS implements it as Form F2, "Temporary recognition of tenant in rented premises". The tenant signs it alone, with no landlord signature anywhere on the form.

What it takes:

• A copy of the rental agreement covering at least three months from the date of the application.
• Copies of both sides of the Maltese ID card or residence permit of the person taking over the account and of everyone being added.
• Photos of the meters showing the meter number and reading, signed and dated on the back by the applicant. ARMS can also come and read them, and will refuse the application if you do not grant access.
• A 50 euro processing fee and a 500 euro guarantee deposit. The deposit comes back when the account is closed, by bank transfer or cheque.

Three conditions catch people out. The owner named on the lease and the current ARMS account holder have to be the same person, which is a problem if the flat is owned by a company or a relative. Changes take effect from the date ARMS is informed and, as the form puts it, "in no case, retroactively". And on a long let the arrangement has to be renewed every five years, before it lapses. ARMS also writes to the landlord about the application, and the owner keeps the right to request copies of the invoices on the temporary account.

Note what the lease is doing in that list: it is the document that proves you live there. A lease that was never registered with the Housing Authority is a weak thing to hand a utility, a bank or a tribunal, and the registered number of occupants should match the number you are asking ARMS to put on the account.

The short version

• Before signing: ask who the ARMS account holder is, how many persons are registered on it, and get the utilities clause written as actual consumption at the residential rate.
• First week: photograph both meters, note the readings, and check the registered-persons number on the latest bill.
• If it is wrong: ask the landlord to file Form H. The obligation is theirs under Article 17(2), and the cost of their inaction is recoverable under 17(3).
• If they will not: file Form F2 yourself and budget 550 euro up front, 500 of which is a refundable deposit.
• Either way, do it before 30 November, and keep submitting meter readings so the eco-reduction is never forfeited.

One last cross-check. The number of people you register with ARMS is the number of people living in the flat, and Malta has hard legal limits on how many that can be. A landlord who is reluctant to put the real figure on a government form is sometimes telling you something about the flat.