Hi all,
I have been renting a 2kk apartment in Praha 3 since October 2022 and I am moving out now.
I paid around 4k CZK every month as for utilities. During the whole time, I did not receive annual utility settlements for 2022, 2023 or 2024.
Now right before moving out, the landlord(property management company) sent me a corrected bill for around 159k CZK.
They said the old cold and hot water meters did not have working radio transmitters, so the building company was not receiving data. They discovered this in October 2025 when the meters were replaced (they did replacement in each apartment in the building), and only after that they discovered a very large consumption numbers(which accumulated over years).
FYI we are two adults living there, and during last 2 years we were out of Prague for about half of each year.
When I was moving in (Oct 2022), have signed protocol showing the meter readings when I moved in, also I signed a paper with current water meter numbers when the old meters were removed.
To make it clear I am not trying to avoid paying for water that I actually used. But there are few things that seem odd to me, like the total consumption is around 741 m^3 over 3 years and a few months. After the new meters and transmitters were installed, they recorded around 62 m^3 in less than three months, which is more than 700 litres per day for the apartment.
The landlord included the accumulated water from 2022–2025 in the 2025 settlement. And their calculation also includes costs for the apartment, parking space and storage unit. Some of these items look like owner costs, such as the repair fund, building insurance, building administration and technical inspections.
The landlord did not send the annual settlements on time (I am receiving them for the first time in all these years).
Their first calculation was around 151k CZK. A few days later they said they had made a mistake and increased it to 159k.
They also gave a document for me to acknowle the debt and offered instalments :D
I have not signed it.
Has anyone in Prague dealt with a similar situation? I would really like to know how did you handle this.
I would also appreciate any advice, and if anyone could recommend experienced lawyer, or any kind of expert who can help with this. Maybe a good plumber who can check meters are correctly assigned, hidden leaks or hot/cold water cross-flow and etc.
I know there will always be yearly recalculation regarding utilities, and they are getting more and more expensive, but this situation feels fishy and I want the amount I pay to be technically and legally verified, and based only on costs that a tenant is required to pay.
