tenant did not pay water and gas

[North Beach Person]

The water bill isn't in the tenant's name but the landlord's. We didn't rent the dump in the first place, the investor/landlord did.

We did it your way for awhile and had to write off about $100K in non-collectibles, which the other rate payers had to eat, fixed cost is fixed cost.

I suppose you don't want to be held responsible or notified if your tenant's decide to run a drug den in "your" house? After all, it's the Town's fault they moved there.

This is why I hate some investors.

[Lacerta]

Totally agree with those who say to call the utility company and ask.

In my area, power and gas follow the tenant, and have nothing to do with the property. Sewer and trash almost always tie to the property. Water depends on the provider. Anything that is a municipal (city of or county of) utility stays with the property and they will lien the property if the bill isn't paid, as well as not allow a new tenant to turn service on until the bill is current. For that reason, we always check with our local municipal utilities to ensure final bills are paid before refunding the security deposit.

However, I said that on these forums one day a couple years ago and was flat out called a liar. Apparently since other areas do things differently, I must be lying about how it is done here.

[North Beach Person]

Originally Posted by Lacerta

Totally agree with those who say to call the utility company and ask.

In my area, power and gas follow the tenant, and have nothing to do with the property. Sewer and trash almost always tie to the property. Water depends on the provider. Anything that is a municipal (city of or county of) utility stays with the property and they will lien the property if the bill isn't paid, as well as not allow a new tenant to turn service on until the bill is current. For that reason, we always check with our local municipal utilities to ensure final bills are paid before refunding the security deposit.

However, I said that on these forums one day a couple years ago and was flat out called a liar. Apparently since other areas do things differently, I must be lying about how it is done here.

You're not lying. Each area does it differently, our water and sewer is municipal and stays with the property, billed quarterly. The trash also, but we bill it as a special assessment on the tax bill.

Electric/oil heat/propane goes with the tenant.

We have had a couple situations where the tenant has paid the landlord the water/sewer bill but the landlord neglected to forward it to us. In that case the overdue notice goes to the landlord (actually it always does) putting him on notice there's a problem. It's usually taken care of then, we do have one particular investor who has issues paying water and sewer bills along with property taxes. We lien her for water and put her property on the Tax Sale list damn near every year. You hate to shut a tenant's water off if they can prove they paid the landlord for it.