Utility Settlement
The process of calculating and charging a tenant for actual consumption of electricity, gas, water, and heating during a rental period, separate from rent and the administrative fee.
Applies to Poland.
Definition
Utility settlement (rozliczenie mediów) is not itself the subject of a dedicated statute for private residential leases — the parties are free to agree how it's handled in the rental agreement itself, most commonly either the tenant signing separate supply contracts directly with the utility providers, or the landlord remaining the account holder and re-billing the tenant based on meter readings or a pre-agreed estimate.
For heating and water in multi-unit buildings, individual consumption is often metered per unit but settled collectively by the housing community or cooperative once a year based on a shared allocation formula, with the difference between advance charges paid monthly and actual usage settled afterward as a refund or additional charge.
Because utility costs are usage-based rather than fixed, a rental agreement should specify not just who pays but how consumption is measured and how often it's reconciled, to avoid disputes when the tenant moves out mid-billing-cycle.
Examples
A rental agreement states that the tenant pays a fixed 300 PLN monthly advance for utilities, reconciled against actual meter readings at the end of each year.
A tenant moving out mid-year requests a final utility reading so the landlord can settle the difference between advances paid and actual consumption.
In an apartment building, the housing community sends every owner an annual heating settlement showing whether their advance payments were higher or lower than their actual metered usage.
How this affects buying and selling
Tenants should read the utility settlement clause in their lease carefully before signing — a flat monthly fee for utilities may be significantly lower or higher than actual usage, with a true-up happening only once a year. Landlords benefit from documenting meter readings at every tenant handover to avoid disputes over who owes what during a mid-cycle move-out.
