Outstanding Utilities at Move-Out: Estimate or Wait for the Actual Bill?

“There’s no damage, so I need my full deposit back on the 7th.” Sound familiar? More and more agents are getting this message at the end of a lease. And if the property is on post-paid water or electricity, it can put you in a tight spot.

We get it: money is tight. But the final municipal bill often only arrives weeks after the tenant has moved out. Pay the full deposit on the 7th, and your landlord could end up paying for the tenant’s last month of water and electricity.

As attorney Ismaiel Mohamed of MML Attorneys Inc. put it on our Inner Circle show: “We gave it to them at zero, they’ve got to give it back to us at zero.”

📜 The 7, 14 and 21-day rules, in plain English

The Rental Housing Act gives three deadlines for paying back a deposit. Which one applies depends on what happens at move-out:

• 7 days: if nothing is owing to the landlord, the full deposit plus interest goes back within 7 days of the lease ending.
• 14 days: if something is owing, like repairs or unpaid amounts, the landlord can deduct it and must pay back the balance within 14 days of restoration of the property to the landlord.
• 21 days: if the tenant doesn’t pitch for the move-out inspection, the landlord inspects on their own and pays back the balance within 21 days of the lease ending.

Whatever you deduct, the tenant is entitled to see proof: receipts and, in the case of utilities, the original bill. And a clause in the lease can’t change these rules.

The Unfair Practice Regulations also say that where the property is separately metered, you may only charge the tenant the exact amount for the services they used, and you must give them a copy of the actual account, free of charge.

💡 The 7-day rule is about money owing, not just damage

Most tenants, and plenty of agents, see the 7-day refund as the “no damage” rule. The way we read it, it’s wider than that. It applies when nothing at all is owing to the landlord. Damage is just one thing that can be owing.

Post-paid utilities are another. A tenant moving out of a property that’s billed on what they use has already used water and electricity that haven’t been billed yet. Something is owing. We just don’t know the figure.

And that figure can take a while. The final account can take weeks to arrive, and in our experience two to three months where a body corporate does the billing.

Put simply: the tenant’s account starts at zero when they move in, and it needs to be back at zero before the finalisation of the deposit refund.

🤔 So can you hold some of the deposit back?

That’s the real headache. If we pay back the full deposit on the 7th and the final bill lands a month later, who’s going to pay it? The tenant has moved on, and the landlord is stuck with the account.

So more and more agents are asking: can we hold back part of the deposit? And if so, how much is fair, and for how long?

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. It depends on the facts of each move-out. But holding back the whole deposit just because the municipality is slow is unlikely to look reasonable to the Tribunal.

⚖️ Why this lands on your desk

As the agent, you’re the one who makes the deposit call, and you’re the one who has to defend it.

• Pay out too early, and your landlord could be stuck with the tenant’s last water and electricity bill. Once the tenant has gone, chasing them is rarely worth it. As Ismaiel put it: “It’s not worth chasing somebody for a thousand rand.”
• Hold back too much, or for the wrong reason, like “the lease says so”, and you could be facing a Tribunal complaint about how you handled the deposit.
• If a tenant threatens the Tribunal, you’ll need to show what you did and why it was fair. You can’t build that record after the fact.

🔌 Two ways to avoid the problem

1. Prepaid meters. With prepaid water and electricity, the tenant pays upfront for what they use, so by default there’s nothing outstanding when they move out. There’s no final bill to wait for and no estimate to work out. Prepaid water also protects your landlord from huge water bills caused by hidden leaks. If a tenant loads R1,000 of water credit and there’s an underground leak, the loss stops at R1,000, and because the credit runs out faster than expected, the leak gets noticed much sooner. We unpack this in our article Stop Water Leaks in Rental Properties Before They Drain You. SAPIN Prepaid installs and supports prepaid electricity and water meters for landlords.

2. An additional utilities deposit. If the property is on post-paid water or electricity, it’s a good idea to take an additional deposit for utilities, on top of the normal deposit. Just make sure you take enough. Look at the property’s recent municipal accounts and allow for at least the period between the last bill and the final reading. Put it in the lease clearly, keep a record of it, and when the tenant leaves, account for every rand against the actual bill, just as you would with the main deposit.

Key takeaways

1. The 7-day refund is for when nothing is owing, not just when there’s no damage.
2. With post-paid utilities, something is usually still owing at move-out. Only the figure is unknown.
3. Whatever you charge for utilities must be the actual amount, backed by the actual account.

🔒 There’s a lot more to it

We put this exact problem to Ismaiel in Inner Circle Episode 2619, and he covered a whole lot more than one article can hold, including:

• which refund period applies when utilities are still outstanding;
• whether, and how much, of the deposit can fairly be held back;
• what to tell the tenant, and when;
• whether your lease’s “final account” clause helps you or hurts you;
• what to do once the final account arrives.

👉 Join the Inner Circle to watch the full Episode 2619 with Ismaiel and get answers to all of these.

Read more

• Rental Housing Act 50 of 1999 (Government Gazette, as published on gov.za, PDF)
• Rental best practice: rental deposits (RentalSphere)
• Should rental agents represent landlords at the Tribunal? (RentalSphere)
• Know your rental rights: what tenants and landlords need to know (SAnews, 6 October 2026)

Need help with this?

Inner Circle members can pop us a WhatsApp with any questions about outstanding utilities at move-out. This month’s pre-written landlord newsletter covers the same topic, ready to send to your landlords.

Need legal help with a specific matter? Send an enquiry to Ismaiel at MML Attorneys Inc.

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RentalSphere — we FOCUS on #RentalMatters because #RentalsMatter.

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This article is general information, not legal advice. Every move-out depends on its own facts and lease; speak to an attorney about your situation.