I own two parks in New Mexico. When purchased, the individually metered electric and gas bills were in the name of the previous owner. To expedite the transition, I simply changed those over to my company name, paid the accounts in advance each month and billed back the tenants. Fast forward a couple years and I have realized the mistake I made by not having those tenants move their accounts into their names. Now, after a 30 day notice, the tenants are supposed to have the accounts in their names by tomorrow. But none have done that and now I need to force the action by terminating these accounts on the 15th. Problem is that it’s winter and I know some of the homes will experience freeze ups and water line damage. In New Mexico, will I be liable for that damage if the utilities are terminated?
You might end up in the newspaper doing it that way.
You may want to wait to do this when it’s not winter. My gut says you also need to talk to the tenants, instead of sending them a letter for something like this.
Good advice. No press is good. We’ve notified tenants in multiple ways and still no cooperation. I think a solution may be to keep bills in my name but for each month a tenant doesn’t switch over there will be a surcharge.
May want to check with the power company on if there are rules around it but that probably would work to start motivating people to make that call.
I bet if any did call they probably got hit with deposit requirements to take the service over.
Shutting off power in Winter is a bad idea.
I suggest you give them a 90-day notice to switch the power into their name. That pushes out the hard cut-off date to May-June. Read through your lease and the State Codes. There may be some type of “you can’t do that unless you do this first” type of code.
Like @CharlesD said you don’t want to end up in the paper.
Once again, good advice. Thank you
The surcharge idea is something we’ve used before to force change. You could issue a rent raise letter with two tiers, one higher lot rent for those that haven’t changed over and a lower increase for those that have.
Or you could issue a letter to all residents that if they don’t switch by a specific date then they will have their lease non-renewed.
Great ideas. Thank you
I would first make sure you are in compliance with your state landlord tenant regulations and then give a 90 day notice to non-renew any resident that does not comply. You appear to have given them all a fair chance and the time has come for you to act.