Check your service-charge settlement

The charges you pay with the rent each month are advances. Once a year your landlord sets them against what the building's services really cost and sends you a settlement (vyúčtování služeb): money back if you paid more, a bill if you paid less. The law says when it must come, what it may charge you for and how long you have to check it, and if you don't object within 30 days, you're taken to agree. The check works out every date from the day the settlement reached you, and which of its items aren't services at all.

How to use the check

Have the settlement and its envelope in front of you, then fill in:

1. The settlement. The billing period's last day, printed on the settlement and usually 31 December, whether the settlement has come and the day it reached you. For a letter you didn't collect, it's the day the law counts it as delivered.
2. What it comes to. Money back (přeplatek), more to pay (nedoplatek), or neither. If your lease says how many days after the settlement the balance is paid, put them in; leave 0 if it doesn't.
3. Its items. Tick each item your settlement lists. Each one carries the name a Czech settlement prints, such as fond oprav or správa domu, so you can match the paper in your hand.
4. Your letter. Pick a letter, fill in your details and print it. It's in Czech, the language it's sent in, with an English translation to check it against. Your details stay in the page and aren't sent or saved anywhere.

Reading the result

“The answer” leads with the timing: on time, so many days late with the penalty you're owed, overdue with the penalty so far, or still due by a date. The penalty is “up to” because your house may have agreed a lower one.

Once it has come, three dates follow:

• Ask for the bills by and Object by are 30 days from delivery. If you ask for the bills in time, your 30 days to object start again on the day they're shown.
• Balance paid by is the day your lease sets, if it's sooner, and otherwise four months from delivery.

Each item you tick gets one of three verdicts. A service is one the Services Act names. Not a service comes with the section that says so: object to it. Ask what this is marks an item the law doesn't settle plainly, such as a management fee or the building's insurance.

The letters follow your case: the bills and objections once the settlement has come, the penalty if it came late, the overpayment if there is one, or the settlement itself if it's overdue.

A worked example

Your billing period ended on 31 December 2025, and the settlement reached you on Friday 22 May 2026. It asks for more to pay. Its items are heating, hot water, water, the lift, cleaning, the repair fund (fond oprav) and a management fee (správa domu). Your lease sets no day for the balance.

• It came late. It was due by 30 April 2026, four months after the period ended. It came 22 days late, so your landlord owes you a penalty of up to 22 × 50 Kč: 1,100 Kč.
• Your 30 days. They're counted from the day after delivery and end on Sunday 21 June, so the last day moves to Monday 22 June 2026. That's your last day to ask for the bills and to object.
• The balance. It's due by 22 September 2026, four months after delivery. Had your lease set 14 days, it would have been 5 June.
• The items. Heating, hot water, water, the lift and cleaning are services. The repair fund isn't: object to it. The management fee is one to ask about.

The check offers three letters here, and opens on the objections, which list the repair fund and the management fee with their reasons. Send it so it reaches your landlord by 22 June, and claim the 1,100 Kč with the penalty letter. Only a flaw that changes the amount moves the day a shortfall is due, and the repair fund does, so object in writing before you pay.

The rules behind it

When it comes. A billing period runs at most twelve months, and the landlord sets when it starts.¹ The landlord settles the charges for each period and delivers the settlement within four months of its end.² A deadline that falls on a weekend or public holiday moves to the next working day.³

What counts as a service. The Services Act names heat and hot water, water and sewage, the lift, lighting and cleaning the shared parts, chimneys, the shared aerial, emptying cesspits and household waste.⁴ Others can be agreed, in writing. Inspections of the house's equipment and the cost of making the settlement are kept out of what the services cost.⁵ The repair fund is the owner's contribution to the house's upkeep,⁶ the property tax is the owner's tax,⁷ and besides the rent and the services a landlord may not ask you for any other payment.⁸

Checking it. The settlement lists each service with its cost and what you paid towards it.⁹ Within 30 days you can ask in writing to see and copy the bills, which the landlord shows within 30 days.¹⁰ Objections go in within 30 days of the settlement, or of the bills being shown, and the landlord deals with them within 30 days.¹¹

The money. The overpayment or shortfall is paid by the day the lease sets, and at the latest within four months of delivery. Flaws in the settlement don't delay an overpayment, and they move the day a shortfall is due only if they change its amount.¹²

The penalty. A landlord late with the settlement, or with showing the bills or dealing with objections, owes 50 Kč for each day begun, unless the house agreed less. None is owed when the delay was the tenant's doing, or when it wasn't fair to ask for it on time.¹³

Mistakes people make

• Paying a shortfall before reading it. You have 30 days to object and up to four months to pay. Ask for the bills first if anything looks off.
• Objecting by phone. A call leaves nothing to show. Put objections in writing, so you can prove they reached your landlord within the 30 days.
• Letting the owner's costs through. A repair fund or property tax line is the owner's, whatever the settlement calls it.
• Waiting quietly. If the settlement is overdue, the penalty grows each day: ask for it in writing. Do the same for an overpayment that hasn't come by its day.
• Looking for the electricity here. Electricity and gas in your own name aren't building services: your supplier bills them. See electricity, gas and internet.

What to do next

Moving in? Ask what last year's settlement came to before you sign, and note the meter readings in the handover record. Moving out? End of lease works out your notice and when the deposit is due back. Your last settlement still comes after the period ends, so leave your landlord your new address. Read what renting a flat in Prague costs and how a Czech lease works, and look up any word on your settlement in the property glossary. Signing a new lease? The lease template prints a whole Czech lease with English under each clause, and leaves out what the law disregards.

Sources

1. Services Act (67/2013 Coll.) §2(1)(c). ↩

2. Services Act (67/2013 Coll.) §7(1). ↩

3. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §605 and §607. ↩

4. Services Act (67/2013 Coll.) §3(1) and (2); an agreement must be in writing, §1(4). ↩

5. Services Act (67/2013 Coll.) §2(1)(d) and §7(4). ↩

6. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §1180(1); keeping the house fit for use is the landlord's, §2257(1). ↩

7. Property Tax Act (338/1992 Coll.) §8(1). ↩

8. Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.) §2251(2). ↩

9. Services Act (67/2013 Coll.) §7(2). ↩

10. Services Act (67/2013 Coll.) §8(1). ↩

11. Services Act (67/2013 Coll.) §8(2). ↩

12. Services Act (67/2013 Coll.) §7(3). ↩

13. Services Act (67/2013 Coll.) §13. ↩