Holdover tenant question

[Al Nelson]

I had a tenant who had not vacated the property by the end of the 30 day notice. The tenant, however, vacated the following day. This fell on the 1st day of the month, which happened to be on a friday evening. I did not plan to switch utilities back into my name until tenant had vacated. I found that the utilities had been shut off by the same evening. The utility companies in my area are closed on the weekends, at least for activation of services. without service, i had no water, electric or gas in order to begin making repairs and cleaning. The following week each utility company, one by one, restored the services. All services had been restored by wednesday or thursday following the week tenant was vacated. This caused me to lose close to a weeks time, because i could begin work on the property until services had been restored. Is there any recourse?

[JD Martin]

I doubt it.Most utilities offer an " auto rollover" where the utility goes right back to the landlord name. All of mine do. You should have all of your utilities set up this way, especially if you live in a cold climate. If a tenant runs off in winter, and cancels service, and you don't know, you could very well deal with frozen pipes.