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Who pays for common-area electric on the house meter?

DoorKeeping team

3 min read

The owner, by default. Common-area electricity such as hallway lights, exterior lighting and a shared laundry room is part of operating the building, and it is a deductible rental expense. Some states let a landlord pass part of it on only if the lease says so and describes it separately, and others bar charging it to a tenant's bill at all.

What is on a house meter?

In a small apartment building the units each have their own electric meter and the owner holds one more account for everything shared. That account is the house meter. Typical loads are:

  • Hallway, stairwell and entry lighting.
  • Exterior and parking lot lighting.
  • Shared laundry machines, where there is a laundry room.
  • A common-area furnace, boiler pump or sump pump.
  • Security cameras, door locks and intercoms.

List the loads once. It tells you what the account should cost and makes an unusual bill easy to spot.

Can you bill tenants for it?

Usually the answer is to keep it in rent. The statutes read for this series show why a pass-through takes care:

  • Oregon allows a landlord to require a tenant to pay a charge for a common area available to the tenant only if the written agreement says so, and the common-area charge must be described separately and distinctly from the charge for the tenant's own unit (ORS 90.315).
  • North Carolina's electric subsection says the lessor shall not charge the cost of electricity from any other unit or a common area in a lessee's bill (G.S. 62-110(h)).
  • Massachusetts bars a submetered water charge to a tenant unless the submeter measures only water for that dwelling unit and not any common area (G.L. c.186, section 22).
  • Virginia defines a residential building by units served through the same utility-owned meter, so common-area load on a separate meter sits outside a unit's allocation (Va. Code 55.1-1212).

If your state allows a common-area charge, show it as its own line and explain the basis. If it does not, or you are unsure, absorb it and set rent with that cost in mind.

How do you budget it?

Example a made-up four-unit building has a house meter that averaged $85 a month over the last 12 bills. That is $1,020 a year. Spread across four units it is $255 per unit per year, or $21.25 per unit per month. If the owner wants to cover it through rent, the made-up rent of $1,200 would carry about $21 of house meter cost.

Use your own twelve bills. Seasonal swings matter: lighting costs more in the dark months and a pump may run more in a wet spring. Compare each month to the same month last year, not to the month before.

How is it treated for taxes?

IRS Publication 527 lists utilities among the expenses of a rental property. When you pay the house meter, it is a deductible operating expense. If a tenant pays one of your expenses, the IRS treats that payment as rental income, and you may deduct the expense if it is deductible. So if you do charge a share to a tenant and you are allowed to, record the whole bill as an expense and the reimbursement as income rather than netting them. Your tax preparer decides how this applies to you.

How can you lower it?

  • Check the bill against the load list every quarter. A jump with no new load is usually a stuck light, a failed timer or a pump running continuously.
  • Put exterior lights on a photocell or timer.
  • Replace failed fixtures with efficient ones when you replace them, not before.
  • Ask the utility whether a different rate class applies to the account.

Where DoorKeeping fits

DoorKeeping reads each house meter bill with AI and codes it to the property's utilities account, with the invoice attached, so a year of bills is one report. You can ask Claude or ChatGPT to compare this month's house meter bill to the same month last year. A work order for a failed fixture can go to a helper by link. DoorKeeping does not bill tenants a share of common-area electric. This is general information, not legal or tax advice. Check the current statute and ask a local attorney or your tax preparer.

Sources

  1. ORS 90.315, Utility or service payments; additional charges (Oregon Legislature, Chapter 90), read Oct 31, 2026
  2. N.C. Gen. Stat. 62-110(g) and (h), water, sewer and electric charges by lessors (North Carolina General Assembly), read Oct 31, 2026
  3. G.L. c.186, section 22, Definitions; submeter installation; testing; water use charges (Massachusetts Legislature), read Oct 31, 2026
  4. Va. Code 55.1-1212, Energy submetering, sewer and water submetering equipment, and ratio utility billing systems (Virginia Law), read Oct 31, 2026
  5. IRS Publication 527, Residential Rental Property, read Oct 31, 2026

Questions

Can a landlord charge tenants for hallway lighting?
Only where the state allows it and the lease says so, and some states bar charging common-area electric to a tenant's bill. Otherwise it is part of rent.
Is the house meter bill tax deductible?
Utilities are a rental expense under IRS Publication 527. Your preparer decides how it fits your return.
Should the house meter be in the owner's name?
Yes. Shared areas serve every unit and no one tenant should hold the account.

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