Rent fee includes EWA but not Municipal Fee

Irrespective of who registers the contract, the fee will be charged at the rate of 10% of  rent in your monthly EWA bill (10% of monthly rent every month).  No escaping it - you have to pay it as your contract doesn't cover municipality fee.  The only amount you save by having your landlord do it, is the 5 BD for the municipality letter .

if your landlord is Bahraini, then he will have a subsidized rate of municipality- that is also if he registers it.

If you need your address on the CPR, you would have to register it under your name.

Thank you for the swift reply XTang.

One further clarification. Does registering the contract at the municipality means that directly the EWA bill will become under my name, although the rent contract says that it is inclusive of the EWA payment?!

isn't it better than to not register the contract !? but then how to I get my cpr !!

I want to solve this but I was not aware of the municipality fee. I see somewhere that there is another fee of 7% and 7.5%

I would very much appreciate the help

thanxxx

No you wouldn't. EWA will be under owners name while municipality will be different. To have an address on you CPR you would need to register it.

Hi danpam14,

thanks a lot for your help. now that got me confused. XTang says I have to pay the municipal fee because I will get it on an EWA bill. But like said my rent includes the EWA bill but the Municipal Fee is not included. Are you saying that if I register at municipality the fee will come directly. If the EWA is not under my name can the landlord force me to pay the municipality fee ?

For YOUR CPR, you will have to register the contract by going to municipality.

The EWA account will remain under landlord name.  In the EWA bill, you will be charged normal electricity and water PLUS municipality fee as I mentioned earlier.  Your landlord will cover the EWA bill excluding the municipality fee.   That difference you will probably have to pay him every month with the rent i.e. 800+80=880 will be monthly payment to the landlord.   In the bill, the municipality fee will be CLEARLY highlighted and your landlord CAN make you pay it as per the contract YOU signed with him (he may physically pay the whole bill to EWA but will ask you reimburse him the M.fee).

The EWA usage will be on subsidized rates for a Bahraini landlord if he owns only one property.  EWA account name and municipality fee are different.

If you want the address on the CPR, you WILL have to register the contract.  There is NO way around it.

Hope it's clear?

Dear XTang,

The EWA account will remain under landlord name, and we pay the EWA bill ,then thr is municipality fee?

Yes, read the above

@logicalindian if your landlord is Bahraini, then he will have a subsidized rate of municipality . is it right?

That means  i want to pay only electricity and water consumption charge.

isn't it?

Read the above reply from XTang again, it answers your query.

Is it possible to register the contract for 1 month? Or to cancel Contract after the CPR has been renewed? 10% of rent on high rent can make a big difference. Is it legal? If not have there people been caught doing it? What were the consequences?

You can't register it for one month.  Simple.

And it is not simple cancelling the contract, the property is showing as rented.  So someone has to pay it until the contract is officially cancelled IN the MUNICIPALITY SYSTEM. 

@XTang

My husbands company is asking for either municipality letter or ewa in my husbands name to renew my sons CPR. I asked the landlord if he can request municipality letter for us. He said yes but then we need to pay 10% of house rent monthly. And we agreed. But then suddenly they are forcing us to just put the EWA under my husbands name. His reason is that, if they will register our lease agreement,all of the flats in our building will be charge 10% municipal fee monthly. Does it make any sense?

@chi28 i can offer some insight.  there is a 10 percent fee on the rent paid based on the lease agreement for expats in bahrain. many real-estate companies and landlords offer to have this is not registered with municipality (not mandatory)  to save the expats paying this fees unless its needed.   usually  for cpr renewal you need to give a residence proof which is either a ewa in your name or register the lease agreement with the municipality. 

if you do either of these there will be a 10 percent flat fee of your rent added to your ewa bill every month once registered.   if you will be paying the extra 10 percent every month its much more convenient and easier to have the ewa under your husbands name.

now as for the landlords claims  it makes no sense as each flat should have a separate electricity and water meter so the 10 percent will only be charged to those meters of your apartment.   unless your apartment has a shared mater or at least 1 shared meter i dont see how it makes any sense.

May be the landlord is concerned that if he gives you letter then others will also follow the same and does not want to take that trouble, so he just giving a reason.

Thank you for swift response and advice logicalindian and leh95. Its a big help 👌🏼 the option that we have now is to have ewa under my husbands name or to move out 🤔