New Landlord Needs Help - Detached Garage Electric

[Paul Shepherd]

Happy New Year BPers! I'm looking for best practices advise/help. I recently purchased my first rental units back in May and all has been good. I have a single fam and a duplex. The tenants in the SFH called me the other day after a wind storm and said the electrical wire running to the detached garage was hanging really low. I went to check it out and was quickly reminded that the electrical line powering the garage was simply an interior romex line that was rigged up years ago and run from wiring in the attic to the garage. The years had not been good to this wire and the insulation and protective sheathing was shredded in some spots and the wire was resting on the house. I immediately said this is a major fire hazard and disconnected the rigged up wire. My question is do I have to provide power to the garage for them and if so, how quickly do I have to do it? I'm in Cleveland and it is winter now. To run proper electrical out there would require trenching and running the line below ground. The tenants use the garage regularly to do side gigs. I offered to provide extension chords, but I do not intend to get a proper electrical line hooked up, at least in the next couple of months. Do I have to provide them with power to the garage since they had it prior, even though it was a rigged up not to code line? Or am I not obligated to provide power to the garage?

Your help is greatly appreciated!

Paul

[Paul Shepherd]

Thank you all for your input.  Much appreciated! It doesn't seem that I am required to hook the electrical back up to the garage for them.  Being that they are only going to be there another 2 months, I am going to wait until they have moved out, and will run a proper underground line in a few months when we do some remodeling/updating. 

My wife and I will be listing our current home in the spring and we will be moving into this rental house, at least temporarily, after we do a little work to it.  I'll run the electrical then. 

@James Wise We'll have the electrical hooked back up and the house in market competitive order by the time we are ready to move out and get it back on the rental market. It's in Ohio City. We were charging $800 (below market) on a month to month lease to the existing tenants, knowing we would be asking them to leave early this year. They were paying a lot less when we acquired the house.  When we put it back up for rent, I think it could be in the $1250/mo range, possibly more.