Utility Bills in Landlord's Name - [Cambridgeshire, England]
Hello, my partner and I began renting this 2 bedroom small apartment/flat since December 2025. Beforehand, we rented the apartment down the hall (we switched because of preferences), so we have rented from the same landlord for about 2 1/2 years now.
For our current flat, we pay rent to the agency, and our utility bills to our landlord directly as they're in his name. However, the meter that our landlord reads from is locked within a separate room within the flat that we cannot access, and therefore have to rely on our landlord to come monthly to read how much we owe for that month.
This has become such an issue as he doesn't commit to coming every month. We may be lucky to see him every 3 or 4 months. Since moving in December, we have only paid the utility bill once or twice. Whilst some people may not consider the issue with this, it means for us that our bills rack up and essentially puts us in debt, and as a single income household, this is absolutely something we're afraid of.
I suppose my question here is, what else can we do? I have multiple texts between myself and the landlord asking when he can visit next to read our meter. I don't think that by texting him again, it will change. But when our time comes to move elsewhere, will this be reflected on us as our responsibility, or his, considering that we've been trying to pay for our bills but cannot. Basically, what can we do?
Thank you in advance for any replies. This has been on my mind constantly and really stresses me out.