When to transfer utilities when a tenant breaks a lease early?

[Vern Gassen]

We have a tenant that is moving out months before their lease is over. We have agreed that they will continue to pay their rent until a new tenant moves in. We expect to clean it, touch it up and re-rent it fairly quickly. My question is, do we switch the utilities back to us for the interim, that period of time between when they move out and a new tenant moves in? I don’t expect there will be a problem with this tenant shutting them off early, but I could imagine a worse case scenario where a tenant moves out, shuts off the utilities and you get frozen pipes or worse. Also we will be using the utilities while we prep the unit for new tenants, is it fair to have them pay for that?

Also as a Follow Up question; Is there any reason not to get the keys from them and change the locks after the move out inspection even though they are still technically paying the lease?

Thank you everyone!