Separate tenants share utilities

[Tawnie Vinitnantharat]

Hello BP,

My spouse and I bought a single family home with an ADU last year. We lived in the ADU and rented out the main home. So we were able to have a pretty great relationship with our tenants and really be on top of everything. However, are amazing tenants are now moving to Hawaii (and we can't compete with that), and at the same time we bought a home for ourselves. So, we are planning on renting out the home and the ADU separately.

However, these units do have shared utilities. So, we are planning on keeping the utilities in our name, and charging the tenants a flat monthly rate for utilities. The other issue is that these units share a furnace. So I have tried to read up on laws in the Seattle, WA area and it seems that I am allowed to have a central heating system and just put in the lease that the temperature can't be set to lower than 68 degrees. Does anyone have any experience with this, or any other suggestions?

[Account Closed]

Keep in mind if this house is in the City of Seattle, an ADU is only legal (in most cases) if the owner property is residing in the property. So, if you move out and rent both the house and the ADU, you risk running into legal/allowed use issues with the city of Seattle. Given that landlords are a favorite target of the city...you may want to be careful. I'm not sure if the new RRIO program covers this on the inspection, but I do know they look for illegal rental units (which the ADU would likely be considered if you don't live on property). When the ADU was constructed (or if you purchased the place with an ADU in it); you would have been required to sign an ADU owner occupancy covenant.

A quick google search of Seattle ADU covenant will get you the details.

Anyway, food for thought.