Tenant trying to get me to pay high electric bill

[Carlos Villanueva]

Here's my situation... I have a 2/bd 1b home which is a total sq. ft of 720 no basement.  A week ago my tenants called and told me the a/c went out at 8 pm at night. We have had long heat waves here in the Midwest this summer. Immediately the next day, we had an a/c guy come and repair it. The problem was a broken connecter and he also replaced the thermostat. Fyi, The unit is OLD! The tenants were happy until they got their first electric bill of the summer season. It had doubled. Going from  $70-$200.  The tenant called us immediately after receiving this bill and said the bill was so high because the a/c had been running constantly and not shutting off when hitting the desired temp. They had never mentioned this problem before and said it was happening all summer. They said it got so cold they had to manually turn it off at the thermostat. Now they want us to help them pay a portion of these high utility bills. Today is the last day of residency for these tenants in our property. So when they called to get the electricity turned off they found out they owed additional  $260 for the month of July. Upon showing the property to new rental prospects, we did notice damage to the property estimated at about $200 Their deposit is $825. Before this whole utility fiasco, we were just going to let them slide on the damages. Just some background on me, I only own two rentals and I take care of them like my babies only been doing this about 2yrs. Has anyone encountered this before? Any suggestions on how to handle this?? 

[Stephanie Lo]

That's wierd they even asked that question. From my understanding, a/c isn't even something that you have to provide so I definitely wouldn't feel obligated to pay the electric bill. 

They will either pay the power company or not, but it shouldn't effect you at all.