Do Renters Pay for Water in Florida?

[UFalumna]

Yes I paid separate for water, sometimes it is lumped in with your utility bill.

[runswithscissors]

Originally Posted by dharmagypsy7

Hmmmm landlord currently pays heat and water in our apt. and almost every place I rented at least covered water. Still I think he should be responsible for the outdoor water. I don't mind paying for water that I am going to be using. I just feel I don'thave to pay to water the lawn especially since the ad states that the landlord is responsible for the maintenance of the yard. I mean it could go either way.. he could irresponsibly use the water sprinklers and we have to be responsible for that bill? But thanks for your advice. I appreciate it!

It's really dependent on how the property is built and wired so to speak. Especially in multifamily dwellings like a duplex or older home split up. Even a legal duplex can have common costs for various utilities, or the washer and dryer etc because over the years people took a single house and made it a duplex especially say, in Ft Lauderdale. If you peruse the code violations you'd be shocked LOL. It's quite common for people to to extensive unpermitted work.

You can live in an apartment complex where the heat is not separately metered so it's included but the water is seperately metered...that was the case the last time I rented which was great to have free heat in Pa.

In the case of your current house rental it's not so much what he WANTS to do but how the house mechanicals are...the landlord is not going to install separate systems and meters for splitting up the inside from the outside just to rent out his single house, imo.

There are tons of rentals if this sounds like something you don't want to do, see if there are others. But I'd say water is something you will ALWAYS PAY. If you were a homeowner you'd want it that way too. Think about all the car washing, faucets left dripping, LOOONNGGG (long) showers, and inefficient things people do like wash a load of clothing with one pair of pants in there lol.

Another thing to consider is the hurricane protection. This will be your responsibility in the lease most likely. If there is no permanent protection making it easy to roll down etc, you might have to go into the garage and take a bunch of boards and nail them all up every single time. This is the case in my son's home in downtown WPB right in the lease.

Every rental is different but I encourage you to never agree to anything without seeing the property and going over everything carefully.