If someone is renting condo for a month, who's responsible for paying the water and electric bills?

[Ruedeephon0]

Hi,
I have a customer due to stay for a month in our condo, but I can't find any details thrrough Airbnb as to who is responsible for paying the water and electric bills. Its the electric I'm more concerned about, as if the air conditioning is left on throughout the month it could leave us with a huge bill to pay at the end of it if we are responsible and didn't factor that into the price of our condo.

Any feedback, answers or experience are very welcome.

Many thanks,

Meaw

[Eleanor9]

You are responsible for the utilities unless otherwise specified at the time of the listing.

[Mike77]

Who's name is on the bill?

Mike
AirBnB Treehouse for Rent
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/7292887

[Michael308]

The owner is always responsible for utilities. Do you pay the electric bill when you stay at a holiday inn? What are you new?!

[Helen3]

Michael

A rather unecessarily rude response to someone who may be new to BnB and whose first language isn't English. We are a community forum - here to help each other - not put each other down 😞

 Ruedeephon 

I can understand your concerns about visitors racking up utility bills. As others have pointed out you need to factor a cost for your utilities into the rent. I would have information in your information book at your property to say, that to keep prices affordable  you would appreciate guests ensuring they turn off electrical items including the air conditioning when not using it and use water sparingly. If you say it in a nice way, I am sure your guests will understand. Going forward you might want to increase prices to cover utilities.                                                                                                                  

[Ange2]

@Ruedeephon0 

It's considered to be included in the price you have charged, unless otherwise stated.

Only thing I can think of for future  is put your prices up to compensate for it,  or add a timer, energy saver, that turns it on and off, or add a meter that they have to feed and say so in your description.  I have asked people to conserve energy:  A/C and hot water, but they don't always remember.  If you have a super modern place there might be an app that you could use to operate it remotely.

[Carla-and-Jose0]

We do long term rentals from a month to 3 months usually. We charge utilities and its the standard procedure in our area. We give a discounted rate for the monthly rate and then they pay utilities as used. Which we think is fair as some guests use very little and other just leave it on all day. However when they know they have to pay for it then they're usually more careful. When I say utilities though we usually overlook the water bill and just charge the electricity which is quite expensive in our country. We have never had any problems. We read the electricity meter on arrival and then on a weekly basis when we do the change of linen and towels, with the guest present and they can either pay every two weeks or a day before they checkout. We request this extra money through the resolution centre and Airbnb then pays us.