One Meter, Six Tenants: How Do You Split the Bill Fairly?

Every method landlords try, why each one causes fights, and the one that doesn't.

You own a block with several units, but BPC or WUC sees only one meter — yours. Every month, one bill arrives, and somehow it has to be divided. If you've tried this, you already know: there is no formula everyone accepts.

The methods, and where each breaks

Split it equally. Simple — until the single pensioner in Unit 3 realises she's subsidising the family of five in Unit 1 running an aircon all summer. Your fairest tenant becomes your unhappiest.

Split by family size or unit size. Fairer in theory. But it's a guess dressed as a formula, and it needs renegotiating every time someone moves in, moves out, or has a baby. You become the referee in every argument.

Build it into the rent. The fights stop — and your exposure explodes. Now you absorb every hot month, every visitor who moves in quietly, every geyser left running. Usage always rises when nobody pays for their own. And the leak nobody reports? Yours too, at full price, indefinitely.

Read sub-meters manually and invoice. The honest version of splitting — and a part-time job. Monthly readings, monthly invoices, monthly chasing. You've become a utility company with no billing department, and you're still collecting after consumption, so the arrears problem remains fully intact.

What actually works

The disputes all come from one root: nobody pays for exactly what they used, at the time they used it. Fix that, and there is nothing left to argue about.

A prepaid sub-meter on each unit does precisely this. Each tenant buys their own tokens from their phone; each unit gets exactly what its occupant paid for. The pensioner pays a pensioner's usage. The family of five pays for the aircon. Nobody subsidises anybody, and no bill ever needs splitting again — the main BPC/WUC bill stays in your name, but every pula of usage behind it is already collected.

Tenants in Botswana rarely resist this. Most already buy prepaid BPC electricity at home, and WUC is now installing prepaid water meters across greater Gaborone — paying first is fast becoming how utilities simply work here.

What it costs

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FactorFast Metering — prepaid electricity and water sub-metering for Botswana landlords since 2018. 5,000+ meters under management. Payments on TswanaPay, within the Bank of Botswana electronic-money framework. More landlord guides