Had tenants for about 3 years split up. She moved out and he couldn't afford the house so he moved out about a month later. The weekend he was moving out I called Duke Energy and had them switch electric bill into my name as I didn't want anything to freeze.

Yesterday his electric bill, with his name and my home address, arrived in my mailbox. The bill is $735.40. I assume he hasn't paid it in 2 or 3 months.

Question. Is Duke just trying to get me to pay his electric bill or has their policy changed? Do I have to pay this bill to get future service from Duke at my rental houses when someone moves out?

I would sure hope not. I think you are right that he has not paid in a while.

Was the electricity even still on when you had it switched over?

Sounds to me like him or the electric company are trying to get one over on you.

I would say if the bill is in his name then it is his baby.

If they are both still on the lease and you have it in the lease that the tenant(s) are responsible for the utilities then you should be covered.

Some states and utilities have funny laws.

Where I am, I am listed as the manager with my utilities company and when the tenant(s) disconnect service(not me)I am notified and the utilities automatically switch to me. I am not responsible for there bill at all.

Maybe a poster on here in your area can tell you more.

6,

If you live in New Bargersville maybe.

I just read up on Bargersville and the city is the provider of electric, water, and sewer so they can require Landlords to be responsible ultimately. State law does allow property liens for MUNICIPAL utility bills. I am not sure they can force the Landlord to actually have the bill in their name. In my town like many in Indiana unpaid municipal utilities(water, sewer, garbage here) can be applied as a lien to landowners property but the town goes all the way through small claims court against tenant before doing so.

This could do real damage to landlords. Towns tend to find out the hard way after they destroy landlords how much of their property taxes come from those landlords they drove out of business. My town levied high assessments against Landlords in 2003 after a state supreme court ordered reassessment of all properties. My property taxes tripled and many of my tax bills exceeded the mortgage payment and I had to appeal every year until they finally capped taxes. A lot of rental properties were abandoned and eventually had to be demolished in the following years. Plenty of vacant land now in this town.

Fight the utility. I had a similar situation, I fought it and they backed down. They tried to steal over $1,500 from me for tenant's unpaid bills and refused to give me temporary service until those bills were paid. It took me two weeks to fight them and they finally backed down.

All they want is to go after a deep pocket, in this case, you, and mitigate their losses, since apparently they didn't have any deposit from the tenant to satisfy the entire debt.

They just never got a new address for the old tenant, so just like our accounting statement for deposit resolution we send to old address.

We have a rural elect co-op. It is the best run utility I've ever found. Even though the power fails every time it gets cloudy or the wind blows...

They physically pull the meters at shut off. Even same day, they will pull tenants meter and install a new one with the new service on one call. I think they recondition them each time, but it solves billing issues.

Jennings mark it "not at this address" and put in the mailbox.