There's two different issues here. The first one is whether or not they are calculating your energy usage properly. It honestly doesn't sound like it, and a lot of people have addressed it already so I don't have anything to add on that.
The second is the solar power. Just because your landlord is getting electricity for free, or even getting a rebate on it, doesn't mean you are entitled to. Your landlord invested a significant amount of money to put that equipment up. Even though it's producing more electricity than both of you are using combined, he could be selling back the electricity you were using to the grid. It's not as if he's truly getting any of this for free. He's just recouping his investment. Assuming he is properly billing you and selling it to you for the same price he would sell it back to the grid, you're actually getting a break in that case since that price is usually lower than the price the electric company bills. Unless it was in the lease, you should not be expecting to get free electricity simply due to the fact that he's using solar panels.
Your second point is very valid. If the solar panel system were to die, would OP be willing to pay more for their electric? Would they be willing to foot part of the cost of the repair? Pretty sure they would argue that this is the landlord's issue.
Everything boils down to the contract, and how much or how little the owner is paying for the electricity does not really matter.
The prior credit balance was $42.63. Your electric Bill was $11.75, which was deducted from the avaiable credit, yielding a new credit balance of $30.88. You are "using up" the credit they have earned. I am not sure where the law would fall here, since the bill is yours, and the credit is the property owner's. They did not invest in solar panels so *YOU* would benefit from the credit.
Solar wasn't free. I have no idea if they can charge you for the electricity if their solar install is covering your usage.
But I know how expensive it is, and if I paid 50 to 100k to install solar, I'd still be charging for electricity. Even if I had to be the "power company."
The down votes speak for themselves. I would have it drawn up plain as day in the contract so you're not surprised. But because I theoretically made an upgrade to increase my property value and cut electricity costs if I ever wanted to move back there or for the next owner, it doesn't mean you're entitled to those benefits.
Solor doesn't magically make your electricity bill go away, in Florida, for a whole home system for 2k square feet. The monthly loan payment on the solar is close to what your normal electricity costs.
The question you have to ask yourself is would you rather make a investment in your home and after the loan is paid off sure you won't have a electric bill but that doesn't account for replacing batteries, dead panels ect. Or would you rather pay the electric company and have nothing to show for your money in 20 years.
All I have to say to you is if you thought because technically I have no electricity bill, but I have a loan on all the solar panels you magically don't have to pay for power your wrong. If you didn't like it, you just wouldn't rent from me. You would have the added benefits of never going out of power during a storm or brown out. You would pay the say level of electricity but for a better level of service as long as they did the solar correctly.
If it isn't in the contract or different states, the legality I'm not getting into today. Or how you go about doing that.
and i'd expect those upgrades to be reflected in the rent itself. not in a bill for electricity. a bill for electricity is to offset you paying the electric company. if i have a choice between 2 identical houses, 1 is 1800 + utilities, the other is 2000 with solar included, odds are good i'm going with the solar power anyways. but i'm not going to pay for something you aren't actually paying...especially since if it's providing an overage, you're already offsetting at least part of your costs by being paid by the electric company. and frankly, the downvotes can go bugger themselves, because i'd tell you to your face that trying to charge me for electricity when you aren't paying it is fraud. i am not paying for you to upgrade the house, i am paying my bills not yours.
Lol, charging you for electricity that you're using is not fraud. There are entire power grids built off of solar now or hydroelectric power. Are you going to get mad at the power company because they get their power from solar or hydroelectric? Just because technically the water powering the hydroelectric dam is free or the sun powering the solar panels for these power grids is technically free. No, you're not. Like bottled water companies that get water from springs, they charge you for water they get for free if you want to make it that basic. You're not mad they charge for something they get for free.
Every state is different, on how it would be structured on your bill. But I have seen where a facility built their own solar grid and charged the tenants for power on a normal per KWH basis. This was a full array, and they did have main grid backup, but it was never used. So it is legal. Can you do it in every state? I don't know. I'm not a lawyer or lived in every state. If they are charging for electricity, they have to be within that states' legal range to charge for it. They or I couldn't overcharge you, but if they matched the regular power company rates, that's not illegal. Even if they are getting a credit on their bill because they overbuilt their solar system, which was their choice. Charging you for exactly what you used in KWH is not illegal or fraud. They could offer you a lower rate if they are nice. There is a lot that could be done. Especially if the solar array is paid for itself. But if it hasn't, they have to recoup their money someway, and it takes usually about 20 years. If they were living there themselves, then the saving would be passed on to the owner who paid for the system. If they don't and have a renter, that money has to be made up a different way. If the solar array costs 500 per month and you pay an extra 200, that doesn't balance out. Now if they charge per KWH and you use only 200 dollars with of electricity then that's your choice or your frugality and cost savings that get passed onto you and the home owner has to directly eat the 300 additional dollars. Yes, it sounds similar. There could be a middle ground somewhere. But charging for usage isn't illegal or fraud if done correctly.
Now, structuring the additional money doesn't matter whether it's built into the rent or your charge per KWH, which they or I could do if acting as my own power company. It simply doesn't matter now that you said you would pay extra in rent, let's say 200 dollars. What if you only used 150 in electricity that month. If you had just paid on a KWH basis, then it would be cheaper. You could also use more than 200 in electricity and it would be cheaper. It could go both ways. But a solar system to power a whole home at least a bigger one is close to 500 per month on the loan. Now you're probably not going to want to pay 500 extra per month just for a solar upgrade, which is understandable. If it were me, I'd rather only pay for the electricity I use regardless of how that electricity is generated. Whether the home owner generates that power, the power company, or a solar power company. The only way I'd pay 500 extra is if I owned the home, and I wanted to make that investment myself.
If you don’t want to pay for your electricity, that’s your prerogative. Of course, you’ll have an eviction in public record for non-payment, but you do you.
I am not a lawyer. Who did you pay the $211 to and who was the bill from? What’s being done with the money you’ve paid utilities with? Is it sitting in an escrow account to be settled at the “True-Up”? Depending on where in CA you are, AC costs might outpace the solarpanel output, which could then be paid out of that escrow account. But given the totals on those statements, I think there’s also a pretty good chance you’re getting fleeced by the property management company.
Paid the $211 to property management company. And the bill was actually billed to the owner who sent the “split amounts” to the property management. They say he needs to collect it for the eventual bill he will get. Yea he’s been getting credit every month.
So you’re in a mastered metered unit. It’s legal for your landlord to do this. Submetered just means your landlord bills you directly
https://medium.com/energy311/is-it-legal-to-charge-tenants-for-solar-power-in-california-e81bd5865aca
Yea I don’t know how he calculates it, but that is a question I need to ask next.l because I was told when I rented it was done by a computer program but now I’m just finding out the owner does it.
Solar offsets your usage. If you have a 1000 watts solar system and you are using 1000 watts or less of electricity, then you are getting free electricity. If you are using 1500 watts, then you are pulling 500 watts from the grid and you have to pay for that.
Solar can also put electricity back into the grid. If your system is producing 1000 watts, and you are only using 300 watts, the other 700 watts goes into the grid. You get credit for that, but it's not much. You buy electricity at a consumer rate, which seems to be 51 cents per kilowatt/hour. The power company buys your excess solar at a wholesale rate, which is probably 2-5 cents per kilowatt/hour.
The real beauty of having solar is not buying power from the grid. Forget about credits. You aren't going to make much selling power to the power company. The $42 credit on that bill is not likely from excess solar. That seems way too much for a month, unless you have a massive array of solar panels.
They're not going to make any money from the solar panels, the landlord will. Solar panels are expensive and cost a significant amount of money. It wouldn't be beneficial for OP to reap the rewards of the solar panels.
Paying per Kwh makes sense in many cases. My question would be the price. A quick search showed CA prices as being 31c, I pay as low as 14c in a different state. Maybe find the NORMAL price per Kwh in your city, and if that is significantly less than 51 cents have a talk with them?
I'm usually pretty good at figuring out stuff like this, even when one side is taking some weird steps to base the math off of, but I can't get any sort of indication as to where they are coming up with the figures.
My best guess initially was that the management company is trying to say "X amount was generated, which ALL could have been sold back to the utility conpany, but only Y amount was sold back, therefore we are going to charge you for the usage by calculating the difference." Which even then, I don't see any figures that correlate to the requested amount alleged in your post.
While I do think the owner likely invested significantly in the solar panels and wants to essentially have his tenants reimburse him on top of the utility company credits, the lease isn't written in a favorable way for him to do so.
According to this document the panels actually did produce a surplus which is why you have a negative balance aka a credit.
He needs to send you a copy of the actual bill showing $211. Yes it has to include the actual usage and the full breakdown of the cost not just the first page and a photo of the meter is absolutely unacceptable
Even if they do provide the billing statement it could be illegal. Let me know if you have any questions
There’s no way they could provide a statement with that because this is the actual bill and it doesn’t show we used that much. They’re literally going off the meter, but it doesn’t matter what the meter says because the solar covers over what the meter says.
I agree it is extremely unlikely there will be a statement reflecting that amount.
According to this document, the true up is going to happen in August 2024 which is less than two months, meaning you guys have probably been running a surplus all year.
Also, because you are on a shared meter, I am wondering what your lease says about it. They are supposed to disclose that from the beginning. And they are to provide you with the formula/calculation they are using to divide up the costs.
Yea I’ve been reading CA law and it says on there that they need to say how it’s divided, but I am not clear on how they do this, as I just found out the owner splits it, when they told me a computer system was supposed to split it
Well, I actually reached out to a law firm that does reviews of cases then tells you if you have a case or not and gives whatever advice they can, so we’ll see how it goes, they’ll get back to me in a couple days
That's really great- for this dollar value, I'm not sure if many private attorneys would be interested in a case like this but if you are interesting in suing it should be a slam dunk in small claims court
I’m just curious, do you think you should be paying $0 for electricity, even though your landlord is the one who paid to have the solar panels installed?
I think it should have been disclosed by the property management company and addressed before I moved in whether it’s included or not and if it affects my payment for utilities.
Why would you think you benefit from the solar panels? They could just as easily be removed or turned off.
This is not exactly the way it works, but effectively, the landlord is supplying electricity and you’re paying them for it.
I am in no way saying that I should be benefitting from them or not, but it should have been disclosed to me and spoken about before move in. Also solar panels rates per kWh are actually higher than average residential. Residential with solar averaging 40 cents per kWh while I am being charged 51 cents per kWh.
There's two different issues here. The first one is whether or not they are calculating your energy usage properly. It honestly doesn't sound like it, and a lot of people have addressed it already so I don't have anything to add on that. The second is the solar power. Just because your landlord is getting electricity for free, or even getting a rebate on it, doesn't mean you are entitled to. Your landlord invested a significant amount of money to put that equipment up. Even though it's producing more electricity than both of you are using combined, he could be selling back the electricity you were using to the grid. It's not as if he's truly getting any of this for free. He's just recouping his investment. Assuming he is properly billing you and selling it to you for the same price he would sell it back to the grid, you're actually getting a break in that case since that price is usually lower than the price the electric company bills. Unless it was in the lease, you should not be expecting to get free electricity simply due to the fact that he's using solar panels.
Your second point is very valid. If the solar panel system were to die, would OP be willing to pay more for their electric? Would they be willing to foot part of the cost of the repair? Pretty sure they would argue that this is the landlord's issue. Everything boils down to the contract, and how much or how little the owner is paying for the electricity does not really matter.
The prior credit balance was $42.63. Your electric Bill was $11.75, which was deducted from the avaiable credit, yielding a new credit balance of $30.88. You are "using up" the credit they have earned. I am not sure where the law would fall here, since the bill is yours, and the credit is the property owner's. They did not invest in solar panels so *YOU* would benefit from the credit.
Solar wasn't free. I have no idea if they can charge you for the electricity if their solar install is covering your usage. But I know how expensive it is, and if I paid 50 to 100k to install solar, I'd still be charging for electricity. Even if I had to be the "power company."
and i wouldn't pay you. you chose to install that, it is a physical part of the house, that means it is included in my rent.
The down votes speak for themselves. I would have it drawn up plain as day in the contract so you're not surprised. But because I theoretically made an upgrade to increase my property value and cut electricity costs if I ever wanted to move back there or for the next owner, it doesn't mean you're entitled to those benefits. Solor doesn't magically make your electricity bill go away, in Florida, for a whole home system for 2k square feet. The monthly loan payment on the solar is close to what your normal electricity costs. The question you have to ask yourself is would you rather make a investment in your home and after the loan is paid off sure you won't have a electric bill but that doesn't account for replacing batteries, dead panels ect. Or would you rather pay the electric company and have nothing to show for your money in 20 years. All I have to say to you is if you thought because technically I have no electricity bill, but I have a loan on all the solar panels you magically don't have to pay for power your wrong. If you didn't like it, you just wouldn't rent from me. You would have the added benefits of never going out of power during a storm or brown out. You would pay the say level of electricity but for a better level of service as long as they did the solar correctly. If it isn't in the contract or different states, the legality I'm not getting into today. Or how you go about doing that.
and i'd expect those upgrades to be reflected in the rent itself. not in a bill for electricity. a bill for electricity is to offset you paying the electric company. if i have a choice between 2 identical houses, 1 is 1800 + utilities, the other is 2000 with solar included, odds are good i'm going with the solar power anyways. but i'm not going to pay for something you aren't actually paying...especially since if it's providing an overage, you're already offsetting at least part of your costs by being paid by the electric company. and frankly, the downvotes can go bugger themselves, because i'd tell you to your face that trying to charge me for electricity when you aren't paying it is fraud. i am not paying for you to upgrade the house, i am paying my bills not yours.
Lol, charging you for electricity that you're using is not fraud. There are entire power grids built off of solar now or hydroelectric power. Are you going to get mad at the power company because they get their power from solar or hydroelectric? Just because technically the water powering the hydroelectric dam is free or the sun powering the solar panels for these power grids is technically free. No, you're not. Like bottled water companies that get water from springs, they charge you for water they get for free if you want to make it that basic. You're not mad they charge for something they get for free. Every state is different, on how it would be structured on your bill. But I have seen where a facility built their own solar grid and charged the tenants for power on a normal per KWH basis. This was a full array, and they did have main grid backup, but it was never used. So it is legal. Can you do it in every state? I don't know. I'm not a lawyer or lived in every state. If they are charging for electricity, they have to be within that states' legal range to charge for it. They or I couldn't overcharge you, but if they matched the regular power company rates, that's not illegal. Even if they are getting a credit on their bill because they overbuilt their solar system, which was their choice. Charging you for exactly what you used in KWH is not illegal or fraud. They could offer you a lower rate if they are nice. There is a lot that could be done. Especially if the solar array is paid for itself. But if it hasn't, they have to recoup their money someway, and it takes usually about 20 years. If they were living there themselves, then the saving would be passed on to the owner who paid for the system. If they don't and have a renter, that money has to be made up a different way. If the solar array costs 500 per month and you pay an extra 200, that doesn't balance out. Now if they charge per KWH and you use only 200 dollars with of electricity then that's your choice or your frugality and cost savings that get passed onto you and the home owner has to directly eat the 300 additional dollars. Yes, it sounds similar. There could be a middle ground somewhere. But charging for usage isn't illegal or fraud if done correctly. Now, structuring the additional money doesn't matter whether it's built into the rent or your charge per KWH, which they or I could do if acting as my own power company. It simply doesn't matter now that you said you would pay extra in rent, let's say 200 dollars. What if you only used 150 in electricity that month. If you had just paid on a KWH basis, then it would be cheaper. You could also use more than 200 in electricity and it would be cheaper. It could go both ways. But a solar system to power a whole home at least a bigger one is close to 500 per month on the loan. Now you're probably not going to want to pay 500 extra per month just for a solar upgrade, which is understandable. If it were me, I'd rather only pay for the electricity I use regardless of how that electricity is generated. Whether the home owner generates that power, the power company, or a solar power company. The only way I'd pay 500 extra is if I owned the home, and I wanted to make that investment myself.
If you don’t want to pay for your electricity, that’s your prerogative. Of course, you’ll have an eviction in public record for non-payment, but you do you.
I am not a lawyer. Who did you pay the $211 to and who was the bill from? What’s being done with the money you’ve paid utilities with? Is it sitting in an escrow account to be settled at the “True-Up”? Depending on where in CA you are, AC costs might outpace the solarpanel output, which could then be paid out of that escrow account. But given the totals on those statements, I think there’s also a pretty good chance you’re getting fleeced by the property management company.
Paid the $211 to property management company. And the bill was actually billed to the owner who sent the “split amounts” to the property management. They say he needs to collect it for the eventual bill he will get. Yea he’s been getting credit every month.
What does your lease say about electricity? Your landlord is allowed to charge you for electricity, even if they’re receiving it for “free”
No specific wording about electricity, just says I pay all utilities but it is noted about A and B units have a shared meter
I see on your lease it mentions moving the utilities into your name after 30 days; have you done that or are they still in your landlords name?
Because I am a shared meter I am considered a sub metered tenant and so I cannot have utilities in my name
So you’re in a mastered metered unit. It’s legal for your landlord to do this. Submetered just means your landlord bills you directly https://medium.com/energy311/is-it-legal-to-charge-tenants-for-solar-power-in-california-e81bd5865aca
Oh yea they said I actually am not allowed to do that
If it is a shared meter how does he know how much you use?
Yea I don’t know how he calculates it, but that is a question I need to ask next.l because I was told when I rented it was done by a computer program but now I’m just finding out the owner does it.
The lease says the usage is split per unit.
How? 50/50?
"Tenants shall be responsible for the total cost divided by units." So, yes, 50/50.
And your unit is how much smaller?
I'm not the OP. I think they have the larger unit.
Solar offsets your usage. If you have a 1000 watts solar system and you are using 1000 watts or less of electricity, then you are getting free electricity. If you are using 1500 watts, then you are pulling 500 watts from the grid and you have to pay for that. Solar can also put electricity back into the grid. If your system is producing 1000 watts, and you are only using 300 watts, the other 700 watts goes into the grid. You get credit for that, but it's not much. You buy electricity at a consumer rate, which seems to be 51 cents per kilowatt/hour. The power company buys your excess solar at a wholesale rate, which is probably 2-5 cents per kilowatt/hour. The real beauty of having solar is not buying power from the grid. Forget about credits. You aren't going to make much selling power to the power company. The $42 credit on that bill is not likely from excess solar. That seems way too much for a month, unless you have a massive array of solar panels.
They're not going to make any money from the solar panels, the landlord will. Solar panels are expensive and cost a significant amount of money. It wouldn't be beneficial for OP to reap the rewards of the solar panels.
Paying per Kwh makes sense in many cases. My question would be the price. A quick search showed CA prices as being 31c, I pay as low as 14c in a different state. Maybe find the NORMAL price per Kwh in your city, and if that is significantly less than 51 cents have a talk with them?
I'm usually pretty good at figuring out stuff like this, even when one side is taking some weird steps to base the math off of, but I can't get any sort of indication as to where they are coming up with the figures. My best guess initially was that the management company is trying to say "X amount was generated, which ALL could have been sold back to the utility conpany, but only Y amount was sold back, therefore we are going to charge you for the usage by calculating the difference." Which even then, I don't see any figures that correlate to the requested amount alleged in your post. While I do think the owner likely invested significantly in the solar panels and wants to essentially have his tenants reimburse him on top of the utility company credits, the lease isn't written in a favorable way for him to do so.
Did OP post the lease?
The 4th photo shows the line in the lease that shows utilities are to be split.
omg, I hate Reddit mobile. I didn’t even see the other photos
OP is still responsible for the market rate of all the electricity they use.
That's kinda what I'm thinking too. I'm just unsure how that usage is being determined.
Why didn’t you transfer into your name?
According to this document the panels actually did produce a surplus which is why you have a negative balance aka a credit. He needs to send you a copy of the actual bill showing $211. Yes it has to include the actual usage and the full breakdown of the cost not just the first page and a photo of the meter is absolutely unacceptable Even if they do provide the billing statement it could be illegal. Let me know if you have any questions
There’s no way they could provide a statement with that because this is the actual bill and it doesn’t show we used that much. They’re literally going off the meter, but it doesn’t matter what the meter says because the solar covers over what the meter says.
I agree it is extremely unlikely there will be a statement reflecting that amount. According to this document, the true up is going to happen in August 2024 which is less than two months, meaning you guys have probably been running a surplus all year. Also, because you are on a shared meter, I am wondering what your lease says about it. They are supposed to disclose that from the beginning. And they are to provide you with the formula/calculation they are using to divide up the costs.
Yea I’ve been reading CA law and it says on there that they need to say how it’s divided, but I am not clear on how they do this, as I just found out the owner splits it, when they told me a computer system was supposed to split it
Great work- I suppose it's up to you what you want to do and how much you are willing to let slide
Well, I actually reached out to a law firm that does reviews of cases then tells you if you have a case or not and gives whatever advice they can, so we’ll see how it goes, they’ll get back to me in a couple days
That's really great- for this dollar value, I'm not sure if many private attorneys would be interested in a case like this but if you are interesting in suing it should be a slam dunk in small claims court
It’s one of those ones that do it free for “low income” tenants. So that’s cool lol but they give advice no matter what they said
I’m just curious, do you think you should be paying $0 for electricity, even though your landlord is the one who paid to have the solar panels installed?
I think it should have been disclosed by the property management company and addressed before I moved in whether it’s included or not and if it affects my payment for utilities.
Why would you think you benefit from the solar panels? They could just as easily be removed or turned off. This is not exactly the way it works, but effectively, the landlord is supplying electricity and you’re paying them for it.
I am in no way saying that I should be benefitting from them or not, but it should have been disclosed to me and spoken about before move in. Also solar panels rates per kWh are actually higher than average residential. Residential with solar averaging 40 cents per kWh while I am being charged 51 cents per kWh.