Landlord paying utilities

[Joseph Ret]

I have a prospective tenant who wants the landlord to pay utilities and she's pretty adamant about it. This kind of gives a red flag to me but it brought me to this question. Is it possible to put in the lease the max amount of utilities that the landlord is willing to pay? Does this depend on the state? Any experience would be helpful. She is also a section 8 voucher holder

[Jennifer T.]

I bet she is being so adamant about it because she has already burned bridges with the local utility companies.  And can't open them in her name until she pays off whatever, possibly large, balances she owes them.  Major red flag because it shows irresponsible behavior and that she doesn't care about paying money for services she's used.

I absolutely do not include utilities with rent for a whole host of reasons.  One being, you can't shut them off without getting into a lot of hot water if the tenant stops paying rent.  Plus, when people aren't paying those bills themselves, they don't care if they leave the a/c or heat on all day even if they aren't home.

If you include utilities, you'd probably get approved for higher rent with S8.  I'd be surprised if it made up the difference, but don't have experience with that.  I have also heard of some landlords including utilities "up to" a certain amount.  And/or collecting an additional security deposit.  But I personally don't want to mess with any of that.