New build utility management
Short answer: the default utility set-up on a London new-build is not the default utility set-up on an established flat. Communal heat networks, prepayment meters, change-of-occupancy mechanics, and the question of whether to bundle bills into the rent via Goodlord Bills Included or leave them to the tenant. Each has a right answer that depends on the building, the lease, and the target tenant demographic. Get it wrong and the landlord pays for it in agent admin time at £18 per hour and the tenant pays for it in months of billing friction. Get it right and the property runs in the background the way a well-managed letting should.
What's actually different about new-build utilities
Three things, in roughly descending order of importance.
Communal heat networks. Most modern central-London developments are built with a single plant room that produces hot water and heating for the entire block, distributed via heat exchangers in each flat. Many of the larger developments add communal cooling. The flat does not have a gas boiler; it does not have an individual gas account; the heating supply is a metered draw from a building-level supplier rather than a national grid retail tariff.
Prepayment meters as the default for electricity (and often water). New-build developers commonly default to prepayment meters on the in-flat utility supplies, especially electricity and hot water. The tenant tops up via a building-specific app or smart card rather than receiving a monthly bill. Prepayment tariffs are usually different from credit tariffs, and the meter type affects switching options under Essential Terms §64.7.
Goodlord-integrated change-of-occupancy mechanics. The standard Harvey W James operating stack runs new-tenant utility notifications through the Goodlord utility-notification platform (Essential Terms §11.5 and §64.1). The platform automatically notifies utility suppliers and the council tax office of the new tenant details and captures opening meter readings from the inventory report. None of that is new-build-specific, but it interacts with the communal-heat and prepayment-meter realities above in ways that the platform's default workflow does not anticipate. The agent has to know which fields to override.
Communal heating — what the lease actually says
Almost every modern new-build block has heat-network provisions baked into the head lease. The block sells heat to each flat via a per-kWh tariff set by the building's energy services provider (often a separately-incorporated subsidiary of the developer). The flat's account is set up automatically at completion; in many buildings the account cannot be transferred out of the leaseholder's name regardless of what the tenancy agreement says, because the head lease binds the leaseholder to settle the bill and recover the cost from the tenant separately.
This matters operationally. Essential Terms §64.1 specifically flags that "in some apartment blocks, utility bills must remain in the landlord's name and cannot be transferred to tenants. In these scenarios, you are responsible for receiving the bills and subsequently recovering the costs from your tenants." On a new-build heat-network supply, this is the default rather than the exception.
There are two practical consequences. First, the landlord needs to know the heat-network tariff before the tenancy starts, because the inclusive-or-exclusive structure of the rent depends on it. Second, where the rent is advertised as "heating excluded" the tenant needs to be briefed on the top-up routes and tariff structure during the move-in handover. Otherwise the first month produces a billing-issue ticket that the agent absorbs at £18 per hour (Essential Terms §64.1 — Complex Issue Resolution).
Prepayment meters in modern city developments
Essential Terms §64.10 deals specifically with prepayment meters in modern city developments. They are a different animal from the legacy prepayment meters that were historically used to manage credit-risk tenants. Modern new-build prepayment is structural rather than risk-based, baked into the developer's chosen utility-supplier arrangement at the construction stage.
Three operational implications. The tenant needs to be set up with the right top-up app or card before move-in; the inventory has to capture the meter type and the opening balance; and any switching exercise the tenant subsequently attempts (Essential Terms §64.7) is constrained by the meter type. Some prepayment meters can be converted to credit meters by the supplier on request; others cannot, because the building's supply arrangement is structured around the prepayment infrastructure.
The agent's role at the start of the tenancy is to brief the tenant on which type the building uses, what the top-up route is, and what the limits are on the tenant's right to switch supplier under their consumer rights. Doing that in a single handover conversation is cheap. Doing it reactively, after the tenant has tried unsuccessfully to switch and ended up on a default emergency tariff for a fortnight, is expensive.
Bills Included — when to bundle, when not to
Goodlord Bills Included is a single inclusive-rent product that bundles broadband, energy, water and council tax into the monthly rent under one account (Essential Terms §11.5 and §65). The tenant pays the all-in rent; Goodlord pays the utility providers; the landlord receives the rent net of the bundle cost.
It works well for shorter-let single-tenant arrangements where the bills-administration overhead would otherwise be disproportionate to the tenancy length, and for first-let or HMO-adjacent arrangements where the tenant profile is rotation-prone. It works less well in two situations specific to new-builds.
First, where the building's energy supply is a non-standard communal-heat arrangement, the Bills Included product cannot replace the heat-network billing. The heat-network supply sits with the leaseholder regardless, and Bills Included can only cover the conventional dual-fuel or electricity-only component plus broadband, water and council tax. The "all bills" headline becomes "most bills", which produces tenant friction at month one when the heat-network top-up demand arrives separately.
Second, where the building is on a long-let target demographic (professional tenants on 18-36 month assured periodic tenancies), Bills Included produces an above-market rent that triggers the wrong tenant signal. Long-let professional tenants typically want flexibility on broadband provider and supplier choice, both of which Bills Included constrains.
The right answer is building-specific. For each new-build instruction we look at the heat-network arrangement, the lease constraints, the target rent band, and the likely tenant profile, and we make the bundle decision on the data rather than the default.
There is a further wrinkle that landlords almost never hear about until it costs them money: even when the contract correctly assigns communal-bill responsibility to the tenant, the default adjudicator position at end-of-tenancy is that unpaid utility bills are a matter between the tenant and the supplier — not deposit-claimable. Without bespoke clauses written into the tenancy agreement, a landlord left holding an unpaid heat-network arrear will lose at adjudication. We've built three contractual provisions specifically to make these claims enforceable, and they consistently pay out where the generic-agreement version would not. See How we recover communal-bill arrears at adjudication for the mechanic.
The change-of-occupancy mechanic — how Goodlord actually works on a new-build
For conventional utility supplies that can be transferred out of the landlord's name, Essential Terms §64.1 describes the Goodlord change-of-occupancy flow. The platform notifies the utility suppliers and council tax office of the new tenant details on the day the tenancy goes live, captures the opening meter readings from the inventory report, and submits the closing meter readings at the end of the tenancy.
On a new-build first-let this flow has two adjustments worth knowing about.
Opening readings on first-let. There is no previous tenant. The opening readings have to be either (a) the developer's handover readings if those have been captured at completion, or (b) actual readings taken on the day the inventory is run. Where there is a gap between completion and first-let — common when a flat sits empty for weeks while marketing concludes — the developer's handover readings and the inventory readings will differ. The void-period consumption is the landlord's. Goodlord will accept whichever opening reading is given; the choice of which to use determines who pays for the void-period consumption.
Notifying the right council tax band. Council tax bands on new-builds are sometimes provisional at first occupation, with the Valuation Office Agency confirming the band weeks or months after the property is first occupied. Where the band is provisional, the council tax notification under Goodlord proceeds at the provisional rate, and any retrospective rebanding (up or down) lands as a separate adjustment that may post-date the original tenancy. The agent flags this at the handover so the tenant isn't surprised by an adjustment on a six-month statement.
What goes wrong when this is done badly
We've taken on a number of new-build management instructions where the previous arrangement was a generic letting agent without new-build operational experience. Three patterns recur.
Communal-heating bills routed to the tenant by default. The agent advertised the property as "all bills excluded" and the tenancy agreement says the tenant pays heating. The head lease says the leaseholder pays the heat-network supplier and recovers from the tenant. The result is six months of unpaid heat-network bills accruing against the leaseholder's account, with the tenant paying no-one and the developer's energy services arm chasing the landlord. Resolution involves agreeing a backdated reconciliation, often with abatement, and rebuilding the billing flow from scratch.
Prepayment meter top-up route never set up at move-in. The tenant moved in, the lights worked for a fortnight because the developer's emergency credit kept the meter alive, then the supply cut off. The tenant rang the agent. The agent did not know which top-up app the building uses. Two days of admin time later, the tenant was set up; the goodwill cost is harder to quantify.
Bills Included applied as the default. The previous agent set every flat in the building up on Bills Included without checking whether the heat-network supply was compatible. Tenants paid Bills Included rent and a separate heat-network top-up. Net rent to the landlord was below market because Bills Included carried an administration spread. Resolution is unwinding the Bills Included contracts and re-quoting the rent at the correct market level.
All three are avoidable with one new-build-aware conversation at instruction.
Where to look next
This post is part of a four-post series on new-build lettings in London. Related reading:
- What's distinct about new-build lettings in London — the anchor post for the series.
- The line between developer snagging and agent maintenance — what falls under the developer warranty, what falls under the agent's procurement scope.
- Pricing a new-build first let when comparables are thin — the valuation methodology that works without second-hand comparables.
- How we recover communal-bill arrears at adjudication — the bespoke tenancy clauses that make unpaid heat-network bills deposit-claimable.
For the wider operational positioning, see New-Build Specialists. For the day-to-day management fee structure that covers the utility-administration work described above, see Landlords — how our 10% fee works.
Sources
- Essential Terms and Charges v2.1.5 — §11.5 [AGENCY-010] Goodlord platform; §11.6 [FEES-004-A] Lettspay; §64 [UTIL-002] Service Charges, Ground Rent, Utility Bills & Council Tax (Managed Properties); §64.1 Management of Utility Bills (£18/hr complex issue resolution); §64.4 Meter Readings; §64.7 [UTIL-002-A] Switching Energy Suppliers; §64.10 [UTIL-002-B] Prepayment Meters in Modern City Developments; §65 [UTIL-003] Bills Included.
- Renters' Rights Act 2025 — ss.1 (assured periodic tenancies), 92 (PRS Database).
- Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 — s.11 repairing obligation (utility-supply equipment).
This post reflects Harvey W James' operational understanding of new-build utility management and the Renters' Rights Act 2025. It is not legal advice. For the published Act text refer to legislation.gov.uk; for your specific situation seek independent legal advice. Last reviewed against Essential Terms and Charges v2.1.5 (7 May 2026).