Questions for landlords - transferring utilities (Fairfax Co)

[Anonymous]

We are renting our home for the first time and trying to figure out how everything should work. Wondering if people have best practices they could share.

- Does the tenant just call and set up utilities in their name? Looks like for Dominion Power and Washington Gas we can fill out a form to have it transferred back to our name when the tenant cancels service.
- Fairfax Water looks like a little more of a hassle and the tenant has to put down a lien offset payment. Do most landlords just keep water in their name or is this not a big deal?

It seems like we just have to do the Dominion and Washington Gas forms once and then we're set whenever a tenant changes, but the Fairfax Water has to be done for every tenant. Is that right?

Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

definitely transfer it all to the tenants.

[Anonymous]

definitely transfer it all to the tenants.

[Anonymous]

Bumping this. I think I was the OP and our rental is turning over for the first time after 3 years. My question again is specifically about Fairfax Water. We're inclined to keep it in our name and "invoice" the tenant because otherwise it seems like there's a $40 fee every time we switch accounts. Like if the house goes vacant for a month and we don't want the water to be turned off, we have to pay $40 to put it in our name and then our new tenant has to pay $40 to put it in their name (plus the lien offset payment).

Am I interpreting that all correctly? Since it's just billed quarterly it seems easier for us to pay the $40 now and just have the tenant pay us for the water ever quarter.

How do other landlords deal with this?

(Dominion Power, Washington Gas, and cable/phone/internet the tenant will take care of themselves).

[Anonymous]

I’m in MoCo - so the companies are different - but I kept the water bill in our names instead of the tenant the first two years we rented out due to an excess of caution - an unpaid water bill can become a lien on the house, and an excessively large water bill can indicate a big problem. We had just experienced this at our primary residence when the main water line sprung a leak between the street and the house (our responsibility) and we first found out because the normally $200 quarterly bill was $1800. Now I have the tenants pay, but some things to think about for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m in MoCo - so the companies are different - but I kept the water bill in our names instead of the tenant the first two years we rented out due to an excess of caution - an unpaid water bill can become a lien on the house, and an excessively large water bill can indicate a big problem. We had just experienced this at our primary residence when the main water line sprung a leak between the street and the house (our responsibility) and we first found out because the normally $200 quarterly bill was $1800. Now I have the tenants pay, but some things to think about for you.

My husband said exactly this - keeping it in our name we will have an early detection of a leak. Why did you switch it to having the tenants pay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m in MoCo - so the companies are different - but I kept the water bill in our names instead of the tenant the first two years we rented out due to an excess of caution - an unpaid water bill can become a lien on the house, and an excessively large water bill can indicate a big problem. We had just experienced this at our primary residence when the main water line sprung a leak between the street and the house (our responsibility) and we first found out because the normally $200 quarterly bill was $1800. Now I have the tenants pay, but some things to think about for you.

My husband said exactly this - keeping it in our name we will have an early detection of a leak. Why did you switch it to having the tenants pay?

When those tenants moved out and we had to re-rent I found it harder to compare our asking rent to other properties when we included water and most other landlords didn’t. And we have since bought other rental properties and it was simpler to have fewer bills. Last time the new tenant asked me a question about something, I did ask if their water bills were OK and told them that if they were over the typical amount to let us know right away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m in MoCo - so the companies are different - but I kept the water bill in our names instead of the tenant the first two years we rented out due to an excess of caution - an unpaid water bill can become a lien on the house, and an excessively large water bill can indicate a big problem. We had just experienced this at our primary residence when the main water line sprung a leak between the street and the house (our responsibility) and we first found out because the normally $200 quarterly bill was $1800. Now I have the tenants pay, but some things to think about for you.

My husband said exactly this - keeping it in our name we will have an early detection of a leak. Why did you switch it to having the tenants pay?

There is no way my tenant would get a bill that was $1600 more than normal and not tell me about it. We always have the tenants put the account in their names.