Passing on the Trash Collection Fees to Tenants

[Gash Nookala]

Hello,

Landlord here. 

With the new Trash collection Fee that the San Diego county is adding , my rental HOA also started charging those fees. My current rental Lease says Landlord will pay for the Trash Collection (because HOA covered it). My Lease is not up for renewal for many more months.

With this unforeseen monthly charges coming up, are there any provisions for modifying lease to pass this on to the Tenant or should landlord be absorbing it? I use standard California Real Estate Lease documents. My Condo has this due July 1st and is approx $40

Thanks

[Dan H.]

You cannot change a lease mid lease to include the trash fee if your current lease states the trash is included.  So you will need to wait until the lease term ends before changing the lease to have the tenant pay for trash.

I have 7 units affected by the new trash fee.   I have tenants pay all utilities that they can impact the cost (water, gas, electricity, cable/internet, etc).  Seeing that the tenant does not impact the trash cost, I have included the trash fees in the rent.   This works well seeing that the city is collecting the trash fee as part of the property tax bill.

I am not sure why this was unforeseen as the voters passed measure B in 2022.

Good luck