Utilities during vacancy?

Question

I have a SFH that I have rented the last year in Atlanta GA. The tenant is moving out on 7/16 and new tenants are moving in on 7/20. Do I need to switch utilities over into my name for this couple of days of vacancy?

Wesley W. · Answer

I would put it in your own name for these few days, yes.  Here are a few additional thoughts.

If there is going to be gap in tenancy, I will sometimes present the outgoing tenant with the situation and offer to credit them $10 on their SD statement for keeping it in their name during your brief vacancy.

I would absolutely keep continuity of service, regardless of who is paying the bill, especially if there are gas appliances.  The utility company here requires an interior inspection of gas appliances before they turn it back on.  A hug pain for whomever has to wait for the appointment window of "sometime between 8am and 6pm, unless there is an emergency in the area, in which case your utility connect would be rescheduled for another day."

If you put the service in your name, get a meter reading on connect and on disconnect and provide that to the utility company.  Otherwise, they will use a prorated historical average (which is for a fully occupied apartment), and you'll pay more than the actual use.

Lastly, I would recommend against the "leave on for landlord" feature.  Here, the utility does not need to contact you if the utilities are put into your name.  Of course, you'll know a month later when you get the bill, but this creates a problem for you if the tenant stops paying their utility bill, so their account is frozen.  Then, the utilities go into the landlord's name (without notice), and now as you are evicting this non-paying tenant, you also get the pleasure of paying his utility bills in the process.  And no, you cannot just cut the power in your name, because if the landlord is paying for utilities (NOW YOU ARE!) that violates the tenant's warrant of habitability.  At least that's how the judge would see it here in NY.

All things considered, in this case I would toss the outgoing tenant a few bucks if they were okay with that.

Michele Fischer · Answer

As stated above, yes, and this is normally standard for the utilities to have a landlord program to revert to owner between tenants.  I love the little invoices for $3, but it is our cost to bear and we do not want the new tenant to have to pay to hook everything up again.

Bill B. · Answer

If there’s any make ready you want water and power turned on. Many areas have a landlord policy that will put the utilities in your name whenever they are turned off. So when a tenant of mine moves out they are in my name (just water/power as I don’t need gas for heat in Vegas) and then they switch back when a tenant moves in. This saves disconnect/reconnect fees and delays.