Unexpectedly paying for the tenants' utilities

Rehabbing, Fix and Flip, Rental Properties
1

Our utility company automatically reverts the utilities to us when one of our tenants terminates the utilities. This works well especially in winter with at least one exception. One of our tenants was planning to move out in the middle of the month, but then changed their minds and wanted to stay until the end of the month. The problem is that they called to terminate the utilities prior to the 15th, so the utilities reverted to us, and the tenant has failed to revert them back. We have asked them twice now, and they have not called the utility company given almost a week.

In this situation where the tenant has the option of turning on the utilities, is it acceptable for us to have the utilities turned off to force the issue? We haven’t decided what approach to take at this point, but I would like to know the legal ramifications of shutting off the utilities under these circumstances. Is it illegal to turn off the utilities regardless of whether the tenant can get them reconnected.

Your advice is greatly appreciated as always.

2

What does your state’s LL/tenant laws say? They may explicitly state you cannot turn off the utilities while the unit is rented.
I am forced to have all the utilities turned on for Section 8 inspections so I have all that in my name at the time of the inspection. My lease states the tenant must have the utilities in their name as of the date of the lease. The lease is generally dated for the same day as the inspection so I just tell the tenant that I will be putting in an order to shut off the utilities in two days. I then tell them it’s up to them to call and get everything switched over so they won’t have an interruption in service.
In your case where you should only have it occupied but in your name for a couple weeks, I would just take the utility bill out of their deposit.

3

Thank you for the reply. We would take it out of the deposit, but their deposit will likely already be consumed by the rent they owe for July. We were able to get in contact with them, and the utilities were switched back.