Common area lighting is on tenants circuit breaker

[Sara Taslitt]

Hello-

I just had an electrician doing some work in my two family house. I am living in the second floor. My first tenant is moving in next week.

The electrician noticed that the common area electric is on the tenants breaker. I have asked the tenant to get the utilities in her name before move in day, but now finding this out I am conflicted with what to do.

We live in Massachusetts, so I looked up the law here and it says that you can have the tenant pay the common area in a building less than 4 units as long as it is disclosed to them. Here is the link: https://www.mass.gov/guides/housing-courts-guide-to-landlord-tenant-issues

I am thinking that it would be appropriate to give the tenant a credit or lower the rent a bit based on this.

We originally asked 1275 for rent so I thought that asking for 1250 could cover that.

I would love some feedback!!

[Richard Sherman]

@Sara Taslitt  We had a similar issue on a 8 unit (2 buildings, and the end unit of each building had the car port lights wired into them.)  It was too expensive too have another meter put in due to where is it and getting wiring run under the parking lot.  We just counted the lights, put LED into them, put timers on them and did the math and it works out to $10 a month for each unit and we take that right off their rent.  Lighting with LED is SOOO cheap now I would just do that and not mess with meters.