California Landlord-Tenant Law: Utilities, Shutoffs, and Billing

California’s landlord-tenant utilities law sets firm limits on what a landlord can charge you for gas, electric, and water service, requires specific written disclosures before you sign a lease, and treats a deliberate utility shutoff as one of the most expensive mistakes a landlord can make. The rules live in the Civil Code and the Public Utilities Code, and they apply to apartments, houses, and mobile home park units alike.

Landlords Cannot Shut Off Utilities to Force You Out

Civil Code Section 789.3 makes it illegal for a landlord to deliberately interrupt your utility service as a way to end your tenancy. The prohibition covers water, heat, light, electricity, gas, telephone, elevator, and refrigeration service, and it applies whether the landlord controls the account directly or acts through the utility company.¹

Intent is the hinge. The landlord has to be acting with the purpose of terminating your occupancy. That covers the obvious cases (physically pulling a fuse, closing a valve) and the indirect ones: telling the utility to cancel service, or letting an account the landlord is responsible for go unpaid, if the goal is to push you out. Retaliation for a complaint and sidestepping a formal eviction both qualify.

The penalties stack:

Your actual damages. Temporary housing, spoiled food, medical expenses, and lost wages all count if the shutoff caused them.
Up to $100 per day (or partial day) that the violation continues, with a $250 minimum floor per cause of action. Separate incidents count as separate causes of action, each carrying their own $250 minimum.¹
Reasonable attorney’s fees, which the court must award to the prevailing party.¹

You can also ask the court for an injunction ordering service restored while the case moves forward. These remedies sit on top of any other claims you might bring.

Legitimate temporary shutoffs are a different story. A landlord can turn off a utility to do repairs or maintenance, provided the interruption is genuinely needed, lasts only as long as the work requires, and comes with reasonable notice. A pretextual “maintenance” outage aimed at pressuring you still violates Section 789.3.

How Landlords Can Bill You for Gas and Electric in a Master-Metered Building

Many apartment buildings run gas or electric service through a single master meter with submeters tracking individual units. When your building works that way, your landlord is the middleman between the utility and you, and Public Utilities Code Section 739.5 controls the billing.

The core rule: the landlord must charge you the same rate the utility company would charge if you were a direct customer.² No markup, no profit margin. If the utility grants the landlord a rebate or credit, that savings has to be passed through to tenants proportionally, based on each unit’s consumption during the last billing period.

Your bill has to be itemized in a format similar to what the utility sends its direct customers. It must show opening and closing readings for your submeter, identify each rate tier, and show how much usage fell into each tier.² A vague lump-sum charge with no breakdown is itself a violation.

What a Landlord Can Charge for Water

California’s water submetering rules live in Civil Code Sections 1954.202 through 1954.214. A water bill from your landlord can only include three things:

A volumetric usage charge based on your submeter reading, calculated proportionally against the water company’s total bill to the property.
A share of the recurring fixed charges the water company bills to the property, either allocated by each tenant’s share of total water use or split equally among all units.
An administrative or billing fee capped at $4.75 or 25 percent of the usage charge, whichever is less. The $4.75 figure adjusts annually with the California Consumer Price Index, so the current ceiling may be slightly higher.³

The submeter must measure only the water going to your unit, and billing has to reflect actual recorded usage, not an estimate or an average.

Leaks and the 21-Day Rule

Report a leak, a running toilet, or any other water problem causing abnormally high usage, and the clock starts. If the landlord takes longer than 21 days to fix it, your volumetric charge for any month that overlaps the delay is capped at $15 or your actual usage, whichever is lower. If submeter data exists from before the investigation and after the repair, the cap can instead be calculated at 50 cents per day or actual usage, whichever is less.⁴

If the problem is still not fixed after 180 days, the landlord loses the right to charge you any volumetric water usage at all until the repair is done.⁴ One caveat: these protections disappear if the landlord tried to enter your unit to investigate and you refused access.

Utility Disclosures Required Before You Sign

Gas or Electric Meter Serving Common Areas

If your unit’s gas or electric meter also powers something outside your unit (a hallway light, a shared laundry room, an exterior outlet), Civil Code Section 1940.9 requires the landlord to tell you in writing before you move in, or as soon as the landlord finds out about the cross-metering.⁵

After that disclosure, the landlord must either reach a written agreement with you about compensating you for the extra usage, or make alternative arrangements such as becoming the customer of record for that meter or separately metering the common area.⁵ Doing nothing and letting you pay for common-area power violates the section.

Water Submetering

If the landlord plans to bill you separately for water in a submetered building, Civil Code Section 1954.204 requires a written disclosure before you sign, printed in at least 10-point type, that includes:⁶

A clear statement that water will be billed separately from rent.
A cost estimate, either the average or median water bill for comparable units in the building over three of the past six months, or an estimate based on a family of four using roughly 200 gallons per day.
Due dates, payment procedures, and contact information for billing questions.
An explanation that the bill can only include metered usage, a share of fixed water charges, and the limited administrative fee.
Instructions on reporting leaks, and a statement that the landlord must investigate and, if needed, repair within 21 days or your bill will be adjusted.

Skip the disclosure, and you have grounds to challenge any water bills you later receive.

When Utilities Fail and It Is Not a Deliberate Shutoff

Section 789.3 targets intentional shutoffs. Broken heaters, dead water heaters, and failing electrical systems fall under a different set of rules.

Implied Warranty of Habitability

Every residential lease in California carries an implied warranty that the unit will be livable. Functioning plumbing with hot and cold running water, working gas facilities, a functioning heating system, and an electrical system in good working order are part of that baseline.⁷ A landlord who lets utility infrastructure fall apart breaches the warranty regardless of intent.

Repair and Deduct

If a utility-related repair is needed and the landlord ignores your notice for a reasonable time (the law presumes 30 days is reasonable, though a broken heater in winter may justify a much shorter window), you can hire someone to make the fix and deduct the cost from your next rent payment. The repair cost can’t exceed one month’s rent, and you can only use the remedy twice in any 12-month period.⁸ It doesn’t apply if you or your household caused the problem.

Rent Withholding

For serious habitability defects the landlord won’t fix, California law allows tenants to withhold some or all of the rent until the problem is resolved.⁷ A complete loss of hot water, heat, or electricity would typically qualify. The risk here is real: a landlord may respond with an eviction for nonpayment, so documenting the condition, your notices, and the landlord’s response matters.

Where to File a Complaint

Suspect you are being overcharged on a master-metered gas or electric bill? The California Public Utilities Commission’s Consumer Affairs Branch takes complaints. The CPUC recommends trying to work it out with your landlord first. If that goes nowhere, submit an informal complaint through the CPUC’s online portal, and a caseworker will investigate. Unresolved cases can be escalated to a formal complaint.⁹

One boundary: the CPUC handles complaints involving regulated private utilities. It does not cover municipal utility providers, so if your water or power comes from a city-owned department, you need to use that agency’s own complaint process.

Help Paying Utility Bills

Renters who fall behind have two federal programs to look at. The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) provides one-time help paying an outstanding utility balance, and California runs an Energy Crisis Intervention Program under the same umbrella for households facing a 24-to-48-hour disconnection notice or an energy-related emergency. Eligibility is income-based, and providers prioritize the most vulnerable applicants, so hitting the income threshold does not guarantee a benefit.¹⁰

The federal Weatherization Assistance Program covers energy audits and cost-effective efficiency work (insulation, air sealing, equipment upgrades) at no cost. Renters qualify at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, with priority for elderly residents, families with children, people with disabilities, and households with high energy costs. For a household of four in 2026, that cutoff is $64,300. The provider coordinates with your landlord for permission before any work begins.¹¹

1
California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 789.3 – Landlord Prohibited Actions
2
California Legislative Information. California Public Utilities Code 739.5 – Master-Meter Service
3
California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 1954.205 – Water Service Billing
4
California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 1954.210 – Water Leak Adjustments
5
California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 1940.9 – Disclosure of Gas and Electric Service
6
California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 1954.204 – Required Disclosures for Water Submeter Billing
7
California Department of Real Estate. Tenant Responsibility for Repairs
8
California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 1942 – Repair and Deduct Remedy
9
California Public Utilities Commission. Utility Complaint
10
California Department of Community Services and Development. Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program
11
Department of Energy. How to Apply for Weatherization Assistance