When I moved into an apartment the then-manager said the electricity would be "taken care of." We didn't know what that meant, but we never got a bill so we concluded it meant the complex was paying for it. 10 months later, the utility company suddenly discovered it hadn't been getting paid for electricity use in this unit (duh - that still floors me) so they gave the current manager a bill for several months. Apparently they can only bill US for the past 4 months or so, hence they sent the bill for the previous months to the management. Management is now demanding that we reimburse them. Another rental manager has told me that we do not have to pay it, that since it was the management's mistake, they have to eat the cost. Is this correct, and if so, can somebody give me chapter and verse on this subject?

Afterthought - I'm in western Washington, near the Seattle area. That's probably relevant, duu-uu-uh.

What state? Do you have anything in writing about who is responsible for paying utilities?

Is there a written lease, and I am sorry if I find it hard to believe that you did not ask about the electric for 10 months, the rental price should have been obvious if electric was included or not And it is always the users liability to call and have their own electric hooked up.

You can fight the law suit when the apartment people sue you ( and perhaps try to evict you) when you don't pay.
But the fact is you actually owe someone for 10 months of electric that you used.
** never heard of any 4 month rule.

But if you can get by only paying 4 months for 10 months of electric jump on it

The lease is vague, and the rent is high enough that it was reasonable to conclude the electric was included in it. There won't be any eviction, as we're moving out within the month already. According to the other rental manager I spoke with, in Washington at least it's the landlord's responsibility to change the utilities over; it was the same when we used to manage an apartment complex in Colorado. It would seem the statutes differ from state to state, which is why I belatedly included the fact that I'm in Washington.

Here's the thing. Even though it was management's fault, YOU still had use of the electricity. So the likelihood of you winning a law suit over this is small. I would suggest that you try to negotiate a settlement with the management company. Either that you pay the four months over time or settle for sharing the costs.

Hello d:

Scott is correct. Whether the account should have been changed and who's responsibility is was to do it, is NOT the issue. The issue is who used the electricity and who should pay for it.

I don't know about this 4 month rule either (I live in Seattle), but I'd jump on it. You're being given 6 month of free electricity. If they sue you, you'll pay it ALL.

excon

I intend to pay the 4 months; that's not the question. The energy company will be sending me a bill for that part, at which time I'll make arrangements. The question revolves around the other part, because apparently some regulation prevents them from billing me for it. Instead they billed the apartment complex, and according to the manager that's how it works here. But the manager is wanting me to reimburse the complex for that part of it, and another manager is telling me I don't have to. For various reasons (not just because it gets me off the hook), I'm inclined to believe that second manager a lot more than I am the other one. I'm just looking for verification, preferably a direct reference in the regulations or whatever, of what I'm being told. I have no problem making an arrangement with the utility company for the 4 months, I intend to stay on good terms with them.

Hello again, d:

Cool. I missed the part about your incompetent managers wanting to be reimbursed...

If it were me, instead of using the off the wall grounds of, "he was supposed to put it in my name", I'd use the legal grounds of estoppel. In a nutshell, it means that a wrong which has gone on for some length of time, and NOT stopped, has been deemed by the party who COULD have stopped it, NOT to be wrong. Think about that for a minute.

A secondary defense would be that the complex has a legal duty to mitigate your damages, and SHOULD have been aware, had they been paying attention, that they were piling up, yet did NOTHING to relieve you.

Those are BOTH legal issues that I believe would cause you to WIN any lawsuit they might contemplate filing against you, or you against them, for that matter. I'd write them a certified letter stating the above, and your refusal to pay. Certainly, they're going to try to keep your deposit. You might have to sue them.

Let me know.

excon

Quote:

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello again, d:

Cool. I missed the part about your incompetent managers wanting to be reimbursed...

If it were me, instead of using the off the wall grounds of, "he was supposed to put it in my name", I'd use the legal grounds of estoppel. In a nutshell, it means that a wrong which has gone on for some length of time, and NOT stopped, has been deemed by the party who COULD have stopped it, NOT to be wrong. Think about that for a minute.

A secondary defense would be that the complex has a legal duty to mitigate your damages, and SHOULD have been aware, had they been paying attention, that they were piling up, yet did NOTHING to relieve you.

Those are BOTH legal issues that I believe would cause you to WIN any lawsuit they might contemplate filing against you, or you against them, for that matter. I'd write them a certified letter stating the above, and your refusal to pay. Certainly, they're going to try to keep your deposit. You might have to sue them.

Lemme know.

excon

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Hi Ex,
That's precisely what I was looking for. Thanks! I have no doubt they're going to try and keep my deposit, and I honestly don't care about that if they do. It's $$$ I haven't seen and hence won't miss if they keep it; when they do, I might try to wring their whatchamacallits a little, but that's about as far as I'll pursue it.

Again, thanks for the info. You made my day!

I would not be surprised if there was a public service regulation that prohibited a utility for back billing for more than 4 months. So it's the utility's fault they didn't realize the bill wasn't being paid. But that doesn't change the fact that you got to use the electricity and can be held responsible for the 4 months.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ScottGem

I would not be surprised if there was a public service regulation that prohibited a utility for back billing for more than 4 months. So it's the utility's fault they didn't realize the bill wasn't being paid. But that doesn't change the fact that you got to use the electricity and can be held responsible for the 4 months.

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Agreed, and as I said, I intend to take care of the 4 months. My dispute is over the other part that the apartment management wants me to reimburse them for.

Ex,
Here's a draft of a letter to the management. For public-view purposes like this I have substituted X for the apartment company, and Y for the utility company. Did I leave anything out? I chose to hold your second factor in reserve in case I need to pile another principle on later.

Quote:

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We have now had an opportunity to seek legal counsel about this matter. As you yourself acknowledged, this oversight was an error on the part of X, not on our part. We acted in good faith, and were simply told when we moved in that the electricity would be “taken care of.” What that meant was not explained.
According to the laws and regulations that apply here, that portion of the bill that Y has billed to X is X’s responsibility, not ours. We will work directly with Y about the remainder, but we are under no legal obligation to reimburse X for the part that they have been billed. This is particularly true since, on grounds of estoppel, X should have known about this error and corrected it in a timely manner. The fact that it was allowed to go on for so extensive a period indicates tacit approval of the situation on X’s part, and hence acceptance of responsibility for the costs incurred. There are other regulations that also apply, and they add up to this: the pre-November bills are to be paid by X, and there is nothing in the law or statutes that requires us to reimburse X for any amount.
We therefore respectfully decline to reimburse X or any of its representatives, subsidiaries or others for these costs.

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Now, I'm confused. My understanding was that the utility only billed the management company for 4 months once the utility discovered the error. I can certainly see a utility being restricted from billing for more than 4 months of arrears. I cannot see the management company being so restricted. So it shouldn't matter WHO was billed, the total bill should only be 4 months.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ScottGem

Now, I'm confused. My understanding was that the utility only billed the management company for 4 months once the utility discovered the error. I can certainly see a utility being restricted from billing for more than 4 months of arrears. I cannot see the management company being so restricted. So it shouldn't matter WHO was billed, the total bill should only be 4 months.

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They billed the management company for the entire 10 months. When the management told them who we were and how to contact us, the utility said they would be billing us for the 4 months but the management was responsible for the rest of it. I just reports 'em, I doesn't explains 'em.

One of the things about this whole mess that just boggles my mind is the fact that it took the utility company almost a full year to realize these bills weren't getting paid! What kind of operation do they have there??

Grr, this board really needs a way to edit posts to accommodate sloppy-fingered people like me...

Scott, that's one thing that was bothering me; should the management be able to refuse to pay as well? Seems to me there's at least as much culpability here for the utility company as for anybody else, so maybe they should have to eat that 6 months' worth?

You're still new here, after you have some more posts under your belt you will be able to edit your posts, at least for a time.

I would contact the utility directly and find out what regulation they are citing that prevents them from billing you more than 4 months, but allows them to bill the mgmt company for the rest.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ScottGem

You're still new here, after you have some more posts under your belt you will be able to edit your posts, at least for a time.

I would contact the utility directly and find out what regulation they are citing that prevents them from billing you more than 4 months, but allows them to bill the mgmt company for the rest.

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Good idea. I'll have to give that some thought over the weekend.

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Originally Posted by dwashbur

Good idea. I'll have to give that some thought over the weekend.

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I was also toying with the idea of suggesting that the management look into the laws & regulations as well, to see if the utility is legitimately allowed to bill THEM. Thoughts?

Nobody has any more thoughts on this topic? I'm especially interested in opinions as to whether I should try to make the manager into an ally with a view to telling the utility company to eat the bill.

New development: the manager who tried to foist this on us was apparently fired a few days ago, so the place is between managers. Our lease is up and we're getting out of here by the end of April, so if they can stay in a state of cluster-**** until then...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dwashbur

New development: the manager who tried to foist this on us was apparently fired a few days ago, so the place is between managers. Our lease is up and we're getting out of here by the end of April, so if they can stay in a state of cluster-**** until then.........

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'T'would appear I spoke too soon; that manager was still there today, and still threatening. Confusion reigns...

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Originally Posted by dwashbur

'T'would appear I spoke too soon; that manager was still there today, and still threatening. Confusion reigns...

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In any case, one person on this forum told me in a PM that they think I'm on the right track; what do the rest of you think? I tried talking to the interim manager about being allies in this thing, but she wasn't listening at all and sounded like your average bean counter. How far should I try to carry this whole idea?

And here's a sort of ancillary question. Our manager's name was Brenda, and her assistant was Natalia. I got to know Natalia by sight, but only periodically caught glimpses of Brenda. Well, when all this hit the fan, I started getting calls from someone named Sarah, claiming to represent the apartment complex. I didn't know of any Sarah, had no idea who she might be, and thought that it was Brenda who had hit us with this thing. I only found out today that it was this Sarah, not Brenda, who I guess had been fired a week or so earlier. Sarah never once identified herself in conversation or any other way, so we really didn't know who we were talking to (she's a district manager of some sort, btw). For all I knew, the mysterious Sarah on the phone was trying to scam me in some way.

Can I do anything with that to help get this thing off my back?

First, this site frowns on people answering questions via PM. Anyone doing so is going against the guidelines of this site. When someone answers via PM, there is no peer review to verify the answer. Additionally, the idea of a public forum is so that browsers may benefit by seeing the problems of others and learning from the solutions offered. So I would be skeptical about anyone PMing you with answers.

That being said, until you understand what really happened between the electric company and the landlords, you are operating in the dark. Have you talked to the utility yet?

So why not encourage publicly? There is no reason why such a post could not have been made publicly. Again the guidelines of this site are clear on the issue.

Yes PM is not for that use, and the person doing so could be subject to review for such action. People have been as far as banned for answering questions by PM.
This is for the protection of those posting.

So yes it is more seroius than you seem to agree. And telling you that you are on the right track is a answer, and obviously from someone that does not care about following the rules. If they don't want to follow rules, why do you feel they have the slightest knowledge of legal matters

Hello again:

Dudes! It was ME. He PM'd me and I told him he was on the right track. I don't ANSWER via PM. Instead, I'll often times say innocuous stuff. That's what this was.

excon

Ok excon, you have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you on public forums.

You know better than to confess with out proper legal representation.

(LOL)

OK he PM you first, that does sound more like it.

Yes, I instigated the PM-ification. I hadn't heard anything from excon so I PM'ed saying I'd be interested in that person's opinion. My bad, I repent in ackcloth and sashes. Now, I really am in a bit of a pickle here, so any chance we could get back to the topic at hand? (insert big grin here to show I'm not trying to be snide)

And, again I ask, whether you have gotten any info from the utility.

P.S. Most of us have notifications set to alert us when someone replies to a thread we have subscribed to (by responding in that thread). So if we don't add a response its probably because we had nothing to say.

Haven't been able to contact the utility yet; they roll up the sidewalks on the weekend around here. I'll try again tomorrow.

Meanwhile, what about the question of the person who didn't identify herself? Many thanks!

Has absolutely nothing to do with it. As long as the management company is standing behind their request, doesn't matter which employee contacted you.

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Originally Posted by ScottGem

Has absolutely nothing to do with it. As long as the management company is standing behind their request, doesn't matter which employee contacted you.

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Oh well, it was worth a shot.

OK, I just talked to the utility. Here's the gist of it.

-they only back-bill for three months. This isn't a regulation, it's their internal policy.

-the management only recently contacted them about this, and as a result established our move-in date vis-à-vis the utility company as December 5, 2009.

-they informed the management that they could only back-bill us for the three months, and anything else before that was between the management and us, unless we explicitly assume responsibility for the entire bill. I explicitly refused at that point.

-on the phone, the utility representative told me that the management's ability to come after us for the rest depends on the terms of our lease and any other factors that might come into play. The utility has nothing to do with any of that and will not get involved.

So there it is. Excon gave me a couple of rules to go on, estoppel and mitigation of damages; are there others I can use? Or will these be enough?

The manager sort of accosted me the other day, and said that we'll be hearing from their lawyers so that means we have to pay. I almost laughed out loud at that statement, but I digress. I sent the certified letter as excon said, and cited the estoppel rule as reason enough for us to legally refuse to reimburse them. I decided to hold the mitigation thing in reserve in case I need to blindside them a little later. But she did say one other interesting thing: she claimed she offered us payment arrangements. She did no such thing; she said "I need this money and I need it right now, get back to me by tomorrow morning with it." Obviously I can't prove that, but it gives an idea the sort of person I'm dealing with.

So, is there anything else I should know before the fur begins to fly? And is there anything else I should do?

Thanks! I really appreciate all this.

There is one thing that is unclear here. Who has been paying all along? If the utility wasn't billing anyone and no one paid then the management company isn't out any money. That was my understanding. However, if the mgmt company was being billed and paid the bill, then you are going to have to fork over the amount. What the utility is saying is they can only bill YOU directly for three months back dated from the date the account was transferred to your name. This is somewhat different then what I understood the situation to be.

I'm assuming now that the utility was billing the mgmt company all along AND they were paying the bill. As I think I said in an earlier response, you used the electricity so a court will, in all likelihood, hold you responsible. However, I don't believe you will be forced to pay in a lump sum.

So I would offer a settlement to the mgmt company. See if they will accept half to make it go away.

No, nobody has been paying it. That's why the bill is so big. Because the management didn't notify the utility company that there was any change of tenancy, the utility has been sending bills to the previous tenant at who knows what address, for all this time. It took them close to a year to figure out that they weren't getting paid, and then they sent a lump-sum bill to the management AFTER that time. That happened a week or so ago, and that's when we found out about all this. The manager told me that the utility would be billing me for the last few months (three, as it turns out) and had billed them for the rest. At that point she hadn't paid them anything. That's why I was suggesting that she and I should be allies in this thing and try to make the utility company eat the bill. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Ok, so the utility believes they can bill the mgmt company for all but the last three months but only bill you for those three months. Not sure if that makes a lot of sense. But I still maintain that since you were using the electricity you can be held responsible for the cost.

On the other hand, I agree that the smart thing would have been for you and the management company to band together and make the utility be held responsible for their mistake.

So your next step now is to contact the local agency that oversees public utilities and see what help they can provide.

I'm thinking that, under the principles I've been given here so far, the utility can ASK management for the remainder, but can't necessarily DEMAND it. But that's one of the many things I'm trying to sort out here.

It seems to me that those same rules that excon gave me to toss at the management should apply to the utility, I just need to get someone to listen at management. Right now the person who's been after me about this is more worried about her bruised ego than she is about sorting this out.

I wonder how I go about figuring out who oversees the utility company. Time to go a-digging...

excon, I don't suppose you know off the top of your head, since you're in this area?

Further developments:

The interim manager presented me with a letter from their lawyers demanding payment by this Friday (3 days from now). Besides the part of the lease I already referenced, they also cited an addendum that says in part:

"in the event you fail to timely establish utilities and services...we may charge you for any utilities and services billed to us with respect to your apartment..."

That's the portion of the paragraph that they quoted in the letter. Based on that, it does in fact appear that we're screwed. Still, I wrote the following back. As before, X is the apartment complex and/or their parent company, Y is the utility, and Z is us:

Quote:

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I am in receipt of your letter regarding the Y bill for electricity. When we moved in here, the manager at the time told us the electricity would be “taken care of.” She did not say what that meant; she implied that she or some other representative of X would perform the task of changing the utility over into our name. Clearly, neither she nor any other representative of X did so. When we did not receive any bills for electricity, we reasonably concluded that, when she said it would be “taken care of” that meant it was included in the rent we were paying. It was not until two managers and nearly a year later that we were ever informed otherwise. We even asked about it on one occasion, and were told not to worry about it.

Inasmuch as the management indicated that they would “take care of” whatever needed to be done, there was no failure on our part and hence paragraph 4 of the addendum to our lease does not apply. The failure was on X's part, not ours, and the lease makes no mention of that eventuality. We therefore maintain that

1. Under the rule of estoppel, X should have been aware of this situation and taken steps to correct it. They did not, and their lack of action constitutes an implicit approval of the situation and therefore responsibility for the cost incurred for the electricity.

2. X is under a legal obligation to mitigate damages such as this, and should have been aware of the situation and done so. They did nothing, and hence make themselves liable to do so with regard to this excessively high utility bill.

But there is more to it than that. Y itself took nearly a full year to realize that they weren't getting paid. Under those same principles, especially the estoppel one, they should be held accountable for this error and have to absorb the cost themselves. It is unfortunate that X has already paid them, because Y needs to be held accountable for such poor accounting. Hence, it is my belief that X, and we, Z, should be allies in this matter and should work together to make Y eat this bill.

I realize we are under some serious time constraints here, so if you have any questions or other need to contact me, please feel free to phone me at...

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We actually did ask about the electricity several months ago, and that actually is what we were told by an assistant manager. Unfortunately, we have no way to prove it.

Today, once heads were a little cooler, I tried again to talk to this interim manager, who is actually a district manager filling in until they get a real one, about being allies against the utility company. Her reply was classic bean-counter: it wasn't my checkbook, so I wasn't comfortable refusing to pay it and risk damaging someone else's credit. In other words, it was over my head so I kicked it upstairs without so much as a by-your-leave or any other indication that perhaps they should look into it more deeply, and they rubber-stamped it and paid it since nobody suggested otherwise. This is the kind of response we have gotten from her all along. I'm hoping the lawyer is a little more open to suggestion; we'll see.

The other interesting thing is, if we don't comply with this three-day deadline, they'll give us a 10-Day Notice To Comply Or Vacate. That takes us up to within 10 days of when we were planning to move out anyway! So this is really getting interesting.

Thoughts and comments are appreciated.

Hello again, d:

Then you'll just have to fight it out in court. Maybe the judge will go for estoppel. If they don't sue you when you leave, you should file suit for your deposit. They'll countersue, and the battle is enjoined.

excon