You must deliver the settlement of service charge advances to the tenant within four months of the end of the billing period. If you bill per calendar year, that usually means 30 April of the following year.
Documents from the building association (SVJ) are a good start, but forwarding them as they are is rarely enough. They may include costs you pay as the owner, or cover the whole year even though the tenant lived in the flat for only a few months. Advance payments deserve special attention: what the tenant paid you need not match what you sent to the association.
We will show you how to turn these documents into a clear settlement, what belongs in it and which dates to mark in your calendar.
What you charge the tenant for
The settlement covers services you provide to the tenant in connection with using the flat. Most often this means water and sewerage, heating, central hot water, the lift, cleaning and lighting of common areas or waste collection. It may also include chimney operation and cleaning or TV and radio signal reception.
Electricity and gas registered in the tenant's name are billed directly by the supplier. Do not add them to your settlement. If the supply contract stays in your name, you must follow the agreed billing method and have supporting documents for the amounts.
Put the services, the amount of the advances and the billing rules in writing, ideally in the lease itself. If some arrangement is missing, it does not mean that no rules apply. The law provides a fallback procedure and the landlord must ensure essential services under § 2247 of the Civil Code.
What you pay as the owner
Do not charge the tenant for items such as:
- contributions to the management of the building and land, including long-term advances known as the repair fund,
- building insurance, the fee for the building manager or members of the association's committee,
- real estate tax and cooperative annuity instalments,
- inspections of the building's equipment and components, or the cost of preparing and delivering the settlement.
You can reflect these costs in the level of the rent. They do not belong in the service charge advances, however.
Take the payment schedule from the association and go through it line by line. Water is a service, a contribution to building repairs is an owner's cost. This split gives you your supporting documents and prevents you from accidentally passing the entire schedule on to the tenant.
How to set the advances and when to change them
Start from previous consumption, the number of occupants and current prices. Also take into account any change in how the flat is used: consumption by a single person and by a family with two children can differ substantially.
You can adjust the advances during the year following a change in the price of a service or for another justified reason. Announce the new amount in writing and explain what it is based on. Higher advances can be required no earlier than from the first day of the month following delivery of the notice. Without proper justification, no increase takes effect (§ 4(4) of Act No. 67/2013 Coll.).
So instead of a message saying “from next month send a thousand more”, write which services the change concerns and why. An attached new payment schedule or calculation will help the tenant understand the amount.
Deadlines for the settlement, supporting documents and objections
Each deadline starts with a different event. So note not only the end of the year, but also the date of delivery of the settlement and of any requests.
- Delivery of the settlement: within four months of the end of the billing period, which may last no more than 12 months.
- Refund of an overpayment or payment of an underpayment: within the agreed period, no later than four months from delivery of the settlement.
- Request for supporting documents: the tenant may ask for them in writing within 30 days of delivery of the settlement. You then have 30 days from delivery of the request to produce them and allow copies to be made.
- Objections: the tenant must submit them within 30 days of delivery of the settlement, or of the documents being produced. Timely objections must be dealt with within a further 30 days of their submission.
If the last day of a deadline falls on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday, it moves to the next working day. Four months is also not the same as 120 days. The rules are set out in § 7 and § 8 of Act No. 67/2013 Coll. and in § 605 to § 607 of the Civil Code.
What if you send the settlement late or make a mistake in it
A late settlement, or failure to meet obligations regarding supporting documents and objections, may give rise to a penalty. The statutory amount is 50 Kč for each day of delay commenced, unless a lower amount has been set in the prescribed manner. There are also exceptions, for example where the delay was caused by the other party or where it would not be fair to insist on the deadline (§ 13).
A late settlement alone, however, does not mean the tenant owes no underpayment at all. With defects, what matters is whether they affect the calculated amount. Defects in the settlement do not postpone the refund of an overpayment (§ 7(3)).
What the settlement must make clear
The tenant should be able to check how you arrived at the result. A single “total services” line is not enough.
State the individual services, their actual costs, the allocation method and the advances received. Add identification of the flat and both parties, the billing period, the resulting overpayment or underpayment and the payment deadline.
Depending on the service, further data will be needed: water meter readings, numbers of occupants, floor areas or the share attributable to the tenant. For heating and central hot water, the documents have additional requirements under Decree No. 269/2015 Coll.
It is important to distinguish between prescribed advances and advances actually paid. In the settlement you record the payments received, not just the amounts the tenant was supposed to send under the lease.
How costs are allocated
For each service, first verify the validly determined allocation method. It may follow from an agreement under the law or from a decision of the association or cooperative. Special rules apply to heating and cannot simply be replaced by one sentence in the lease.
Unless the method has been determined otherwise by the relevant procedure, Act No. 67/2013 Coll. applies rules such as these in § 5:
- Cold water and sewerage: the ratio of readings from sub-meters. If these are not installed in all flats and non-residential premises, standard annual water consumption figures are used.
- Lift, lighting, cleaning or waste collection: the number of persons decisive for the allocation.
- Chimney operation and cleaning: the number of chimney outlets used.
- TV and radio signal: the number of cable sockets.
Heating and central hot water are governed by § 6 and Decree No. 269/2015 Coll. For a flat in a building with an owners' association, request the corresponding allocation from the building manager. The annual heating bill cannot simply be divided by the number of persons or months.
How to prepare the settlement step by step
- Gather the documents. The settlement from the association, invoices, handover protocols, meter readings, numbers of occupants and an overview of payments.
- Separate your own costs from the services. Exclude items such as the repair fund, building insurance and the building management fee.
- Check the amounts attributable to the tenant. For each service, verify the share used and the period. Do not reduce again an amount that has already been correctly allocated.
- Add up the advances received. Compare them with bank statements and your own records. For unpaid advances, check that you are not already pursuing the same amount separately.
- Calculate the difference and add the due date. Costs minus advances received give either an underpayment or an overpayment.
- Deliver the settlement demonstrably. Keep the confirmation of receipt or other proof of delivery. Simply sending a message may not be enough to prove when the tenant received it.
- Keep the documents. You will need them for queries, objections or a dispute. Adjust the retention period to your tax obligations as well.
Example: how much the tenant should pay
The actual annual cost of services is 36 000 Kč. The tenant was supposed to pay 33 000 Kč in advances, but only sent 30 000 Kč to the account.
The settlement therefore shows an underpayment of 6 000 Kč, not 3 000 Kč. You deduct the money you actually received. If you are already pursuing the unpaid 3 000 Kč as a separate debt, check how the two claims relate so that you do not demand the same amount twice.
If, with the same costs, the tenant had paid 40 000 Kč in advances, you would instead refund an overpayment of 4 000 Kč.
When the tenant moves out during the year
A tenant moving out usually does not mean you have to settle the whole year immediately. If the billing period is the calendar year, you deliver the settlement for 2026 by 30 April 2027 at the latest, even to a tenant who left in June.
At the handover, however, record the meter readings, the date use ended and the address for delivering the settlement straight away. Also agree where to send any overpayment. Tracking this information down later tends to be a needless complication.
Allocate each service according to its own rules. For water you start from the readings; for services based on persons you take into account the number of people and the period of use. For heating you follow the special allocation. A tenant who lived in the flat from January to June need not have consumed exactly half of the annual heat.
Can you agree a flat fee instead of advances?
Yes, a flat-rate payment for services that is not settled can be agreed in writing. For leases longer than 24 months or for an indefinite term, however, the flat fee must not include heating, central hot water, water supply and wastewater drainage. These services must be settled (§ 9 of Act No. 67/2013 Coll.).
So distinguish a final flat fee from advances in the lease. A fixed monthly amount in itself does not mean the annual settlement is dropped.
Excel template for the service charge settlement
The Excel settlement template contains an overview of services, a monthly record of advances received and instructions for completing it. It helps you keep the documents in one place and compare costs with the tenant's payments.
Before you start, check what each amount you enter represents. The cost for the whole building, the cost for your flat and the amount attributable to a specific tenant are not the same thing. A cost that has already been allocated must not be multiplied by the same share again. If the tenant changed during the year, the annual cost for the flat alone need not be the amount you can charge them.
The template does not replace the supporting documents or the heat allocation from the building manager. Before delivery, check the amounts, the shares used, the completeness of the data and the deadlines. You will find further documents on the page Contract templates.
Before you send the settlement
Check four places where mistakes easily creep in:
- Costs: has the repair fund or another owner's payment stayed among the services?
- Shares: are you reducing again an amount the manager has already allocated, and does the period match the tenant?
- Advances: are you counting payments actually received, including December, and could the same debt be claimed twice?
- Delivery: do you have proof of when the tenant received the settlement, and do you know when the money is to be settled?
Leave the settlement to us
Documents from the association, advances from the tenant, meter readings and deadlines all have to fit together. With the Partner and Partner+ options, we prepare the annual service charge settlement for tenants on your behalf as part of the property management, including keeping track of deadlines and chasing underpayments. Before we start working together, we go through which documents you supply and what we take over.
With the Garant option, you have a contract with FLAT SERVICE and we handle the billing towards the people living in the flat. Your cooperation and obligations towards us form part of the agreed terms.
Would you like a rental without chasing payments and deadlines every year? Arrange a no-obligation consultation. We will discuss your flat and explain what we can take over for you as part of the management.
Sources and currency of information
Updated on 13 September 2026 in line with Act No. 67/2013 Coll., in particular § 2 to § 9 and § 13, and Decree No. 269/2015 Coll.. Essential services are also governed by § 2247 of the Civil Code and the counting of deadlines by its § 605 to § 607.
This article describes the general procedure for flat landlords. Disputed amounts or unusual contractual terms should be assessed individually.
