What are my utility rights and responsibilities if I rent my home?
Residential tenants are also consumers of natural gas, electric, telephone, water or other utility services.  Sometimes, the utility bill is in the tenant’s name and the tenant is the “customer” of the utility.  A tenant-customer of a utility company enjoys the same legal rights and protections as homeowner-customers of those utility companies.  Other tenants, however, are not direct customers of the company providing their utility service.  Their utility payments are included in their rent and they do not make any payments directly to the utility company.  They are “consumers” of the utility service, but not utility service “customers.”

Can my landlord turn off my utilities?
Ohio’s residential landlord/tenant laws prohibit landlords from denying or terminating utility service to their tenants, and landlords must provide, maintain and, if necessary, repair utility service-related equipment at their rental units so that their tenants can access essential utility services. 

At the same time, Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) rules provide some additional protections to tenant-consumers of utility service, for example, by requiring natural gas and electric companies to give pre-disconnection notices to tenants and allowing tenants to change delinquent landlord-held utility accounts into the tenants’ names.

Can my landlord charge me for utilities?
Another utility-related issue sometimes encountered by tenants is the unreasonable allocation of utility costs to tenants by landlords of master-metered rental premises.  Tenants may legally challenge unfair or unreasonable allocations of utility costs by landlords in master-metered buildings or, where the landlord does provide submetering, possibly challenge excessive or unreasonable submetering fees or surcharges.

See also the Forms & Education tab in this section for more information.