Utility Payments
I have heard many landlords ask the question, if I have two units in my house do I make the upstairs tenants pay the hydro or should I keep it in my name?
Section 13.2 of the Residential Tenancy Act outlines the standard term requirements of a tenancy agreement in BC. One of those is the services or facilities provided during the tenancy. Services include the utilities provided.
When renting a property that has more than one unit in it, with two separate lease agreements the utilities are not allowed to be paid by one tenant and asking the other tenant to reimburse another tenant. The reasons this is not permitted are if the upper level tenant has the hydro account in their name and the lower level tenant fails to pay them their portion of the cost, the upper level tenant has no recourse to recoup these costs. The landlord is not permitted to make one tenant provide a service, in this case utilities, to another tenant as part of the condition of renting their property. The two tenants do not have a contract between each other stipulating who pays who. The agreement is between the tenants and the landlord.
When you have a situation that has the utilities split the best thing to do is for the landlord to pay the utilities and then send each tenant copies of the monthly invoices explaining how much their cost of the invoice is for reimbursement to the landlord. In this process the tenants are able to see the costs, and their usage of the utilities being used and the landlord is reimbursed at the earliest time for those costs. Providing the tenants the invoices reduces issues or concerns as they are provided real information about the costs.
Some landlords pay on equal billing, and then at the end of the year ask tenants to make up any differences. This can be an issue if the tenants leave before the utility squares up the equal billing costs. We find when tenants can see their usage they aslo adjust the amount of utilities they use, reducing the costs as they are paying and are able to control their cost by adjusting their usage. In the winer if they see the costs of heat going up they may trun it down when they are out of the house, or turn off lights more frequently.
The standard tenancy agreement in BC has a section where landlords indicate what utilities are included in the tenancy agreement, including hydro, heat, water, natural gas, tv and or internet. Once these items are included you are not permitted to alter these without the tenants agreement. Even though you indicate on the front of the agreement what is and isn’t included it is prudent to have an addendum which outlines how and when utilities are paid. This is important in the event you end up at the Residenital Tenancy Branch as it will describe when the utilities are expected to be paid, and that determines when they are late.
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