What Utilities Do Landlords Pay in California?

In California, the lease decides which utilities the landlord pays and which the tenant pays, but state law overrides the lease in a few specific situations. So the honest answer to what utilities landlords pay in California is: whatever the lease assigns to them, plus any gas or electric usage outside a tenant’s unit on a shared meter, plus the actual cost of water or power resold through a master meter without markup, plus the cost of keeping the plumbing, heating, and electrical systems themselves in working order.

The Lease Decides First

The lease is the starting point for every utility question. It should name each service — electricity, natural gas, water, sewer, trash — and say who pays. When the lease assigns a utility to the tenant, the tenant sets up the account and pays the provider. When it assigns a utility to the landlord, the landlord pays. Some leases bundle everything into the rent. Others split the bills in ways that depend on the building, the city, and what the landlord prefers.

Read the utility clause before signing. A landlord can lawfully pass most utility costs to a tenant through the lease. What a lease cannot do is contract around the rules below.

Shared Gas or Electric Meters

If a tenant’s gas or electric meter also measures usage from a common area, another apartment, or anywhere outside that tenant’s unit, the landlord has work to do before billing the tenant. Civil Code Section 1940.9 requires the landlord to disclose the shared-meter situation before the tenancy begins, or as soon as the landlord learns about it, and to reach a written agreement with the tenant about how the shared usage will be handled.¹ The agreement might have the landlord take over the account, install a separate meter for the common area, or split the bill on some agreed formula.

Skip the disclosure and the written agreement and the consequences are real. A court can order the landlord to become the customer of record on that meter and reimburse the tenant for everything paid toward usage outside the unit, going back to when the landlord should have disclosed.¹ A landlord who ignores the rule effectively ends up paying the whole bill.

Master-Metered Buildings

In buildings with one master gas or electric meter and submeters for individual units, the landlord is reselling utility service. Public Utilities Code Section 739.5 limits that resale to the rate the utility company itself would charge the tenant as a direct customer. No markup, no profit on the service.²

The landlord also has to give each tenant itemized bills, post the utility’s current residential rate schedule somewhere visible, and pass along each tenant’s proportional share of any rebate the utility issues on the master account.²

Water and Sewer in Multi-Unit Buildings

Water and sewer billing in buildings with a single master water meter runs on its own set of rules, found in Civil Code Sections 1954.202 through 1954.219. A landlord who wants to pass water costs through to tenants can do it with submeters that measure each unit’s actual consumption, or with a ratio utility billing system (RUBS) that allocates costs based on factors like square footage or occupancy.³

Either way, tenants can only be charged for actual utility costs. If common areas like landscaping or a pool pull from the same master meter, the landlord has to subtract that usage before dividing the rest among tenants. And leaks shift the cost back to the landlord. Once the landlord knows about a leak or malfunctioning fixture that is driving usage up, there’s a 21-day window to fix it. After that, the tenant’s charges are capped at $15 per month or actual usage, whichever is less, until the repair is made. If 180 days pass with no repair, the landlord can’t charge the tenant for water at all until the problem is fixed.⁴

Trash

Trash tends to fall on the landlord by default, mostly for billing reasons. Many California cities bill refuse collection to the property owner, so the landlord receives the bill no matter what the lease says. Civil Code Section 1941.1 also requires landlords to provide an adequate number of garbage receptacles in good condition as part of basic habitability.⁵

A lease can assign trash costs to the tenant, and in a single-family rental the tenant often sets up the account directly. In multi-unit buildings with a shared dumpster, the landlord almost always pays.

Habitability: What the Landlord Must Keep Working

Separate from who pays monthly bills, every residential landlord in California must keep the unit habitable. Civil Code Section 1941.1 lists the standards. The utility-related ones are:

Hot and cold running water, with an approved supply connected to a working sewage system.
Plumbing and gas facilities in good working order.
A working heating system.
Electrical wiring and equipment in good working order.
Adequate garbage receptacles in good condition.⁵

This is where tenants and landlords talk past each other. Habitability requires the landlord to provide and maintain the systems. The lease still decides who pays the monthly bill flowing through those systems. A landlord has to keep the water heater working even if the tenant pays the gas that runs it. If the furnace breaks, the landlord fixes it regardless of whose name is on the gas account.

Shutting Off a Tenant’s Utilities Is Illegal

A landlord cannot cut off a tenant’s water, heat, electricity, gas, or any other utility to pressure the tenant into leaving. Civil Code Section 789.3 bans it outright, and the ban applies whether or not the landlord is the account holder. The same statute prohibits changing locks, removing doors or windows, and hauling out a tenant’s belongings.⁶

Penalties stack quickly. A landlord who violates Section 789.3 owes the tenant actual damages plus up to $100 for each day the violation continues, with a minimum of $250 per violation. The court must award attorney’s fees to a tenant who wins, and the tenant can get an injunction forcing immediate restoration of service while the case is pending.⁶

If a Landlord-Paid Utility Fails

When a utility-related problem the landlord is responsible for makes the unit unlivable, Civil Code Section 1942 gives the tenant two options after notifying the landlord. The tenant can use the “repair and deduct” remedy: wait a reasonable time (30 days creates a legal presumption that enough time has passed), then hire someone to fix the problem and deduct the cost from rent, as long as it doesn’t exceed one month’s rent. This is available twice in any 12-month period.⁷

Or, if the condition is severe enough, the tenant can move out and stop paying rent from the date they leave. Neither remedy is available if the tenant caused the problem.⁷

1
California Legislative Information. California Code CIV 1940.9
2
California Public Utilities Commission. D0411003 PU Code Section 739.5
3
California Legislative Information. California Code CIV 1954.202
4
California Legislative Information. California Code CIV 1954.210
5
California Legislative Information. California Code CIV 1941.1
6
California Legislative Information. California Code CIV 789.3
7
California Legislative Information. California Code CIV 1942