Discussions

First time landlord here, I am renting out my basement and am charging rent + utilities. How would I go about calculating utilities costs for potential tenants before they've rented the place?  
 
Also, I apologize if this is not the place to post this. I have looked around online but couldn't find a source that explains how to do this. Any information(outside of the landlord and tenants act) for new landlords would be appreciated.  

Do you have separate meters? If not the only thing you could do is divide the utilities by how many people live there and then everyone pays there share. But I also don't think that's right since what if the tenant never leaves lights or electronics on but you do or vice versa? Then there paying for your utilities. If I were you I'd just charge a flat rate....

there are flaws in any method unless you have separate meters but if you dont there are a few ways i have seen it done  
 
-you could divide by the square footage of the whole house and then calculate how much they owe based on the square footage of their suite (how i would do it)  
 
-split the bill in half month to month  
 
-divide by people in the unit  
 
-have a set amount for "utilities" based on hydro's equalized payment  
 
- charge the base rate on how much the usage went up based on hydros history on the back of the bill (way to much work imo lol)  
 
 
Its your house so like it or not you make the rules, charge the method you feel is best and as long as you are clear in the rental agreement you are free to do as you wish  
 
dont forget just like tenants can get shafted when they are efficient and the other suite isn't so can the other guy (you) when the tenant could care less about how much they leave on  
 
unless you just increase the rent to include hydro, if you dont have a separate meter then you are really just guessing anyway  

Thank you all for your replies  
We've decided to charge a flat rate for utilities and have agreed to increase the rate should they use more utilities than expected.

1/3 is a good starting point. it really does depend on the number of tenants occupying the suite and the cubic footage of the spaces.  
 
I'd familiarize myself with the rules, esp. lesser known ones, and also important ones like ingress/egress options,etc...  
 
Experience is the best teacher. So good luck to you!

Cost of the utility per month, divided by the number of people in the home over the age of 16 (Children don't really use the utilities) then multiply it by the number of people renting out your basement.  
 
I think that is the most fair and reasonable way to calculate it.

or a room and board situation?  
 
a legal suite could have a new panel and meter installed. room and board typically includes utilities. if you are charging for utilities, you would need to provide receipts for collecting the money anyways so, why not just charge an all inclusive flat rate? why spend your time monitoring someone else's utility consumption, when it technically is private.  
 
i'm not sure how i would react personally, if someone told me they were not happy with my usage, if i were paying them in advance for the dwelling, especially of there is no accurate way to determine who is actually what and how much.  
 
set a price and stick to it. get it in writing and signed, BEFORE they move in. that way there is no drama later.

place we rent utilities are factored into our rent as per the EPP... should our usage (for the whole house as we don't have separate meters and only one furnace to heat the whole house) exceed the amount on the EPP when the landlord get the bill, the basement pays 1/3 of amount owing and upstairs (larger sq footage and garage) pays 2/3 amount owing. Landlord pays bill when it comes, gives us a copy and an invoice for amount each suite owes with 60 days to pay. Seems fair to us, been doing it that way for years- but both up and down are renters so might be different if landlord lived in one of the suites.

we have been renting our suite in our house for years we just charge everthing in the rent that way we can claim 1/3 of the of the hydro, water bills on our income tax as deductions.but this was our choice

to charge for utilities like that. I was under the impression that either there is a separate meter for their utilities or you must charge an all inclusive rental amount which covers those utilities! You are the one that gets to claim the utilities at tax time???  

yes its legal to split the utilities as long as the landlord puts the utilities in the agreement, many places here and other provinces rent out like this because usage can vary dramatically depending on the tenants, if they pay hydro tho you can not deduct the cost on your taxes, still imo better for the tenant to pay because hydro rates go up and if you dont separate them and they stay 10 years you have a hard time raising the rents to cover the increased costs, the guild-lines do not allow enough of a raise to cover these things  
 
 
kids now a days do use a lot of hydro too, showering ( maybe want to think about water usage in your rent), lots of gaming and electronics so the amount of kids also count towards bills  
 
monitoring the hydro usage to a point for tenants is fair, i have saw many tenants do things that wouldn't be fair for the landlord to pay, things like heating the suite to 80 with the oven but leaving windows and doors open, a tenant is entitled to privacy to some extent but when it affects the businesses bottom line then yes the landlord has to keep an eye on those things