{"id":67143,"date":"2025-07-16T11:58:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T11:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/67143\/"},"modified":"2025-07-16T11:58:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T11:58:15","slug":"san-diego-moves-to-ban-landlords-overcharging-renters-for-utilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/67143\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego moves to ban landlords overcharging renters for utilities"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Recycling<\/a>Recycling and trash bins line an alley in Ocean Beach. (File photo by Thomas Melville\/Beach & Bay Press)<\/p>\n

San Diego is moving to ban landlords from overcharging tenants for city utilities after renters accused property owners of charging more than their fair share.<\/p>\n

For years, San Diego renters have demanded more transparency from landlords over how they calculate the utility bills they charge tenants. The city is now responding to their calls by ramping up renter protections, especially as it expands the utility fees it charges San Diegans.<\/p>\n

The new tenant protection is now one step away from becoming law after the San Diego City Council unanimously passed the ban Tuesday morning. It now just needs Mayor Todd Gloria\u2019s signature to take effect, which may happen as early as August.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny way we can save folks money is a worthwhile effort,\u201d said Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, whose office proposed the ban, at Tuesday\u2019s vote.<\/p>\n

What utilities are tenants responsible for?<\/p>\n

\"Sean<\/a>Sean Elo-Rivera. Photo by Salvatore Giametta<\/p>\n

The city has historically charged property owners for water, stormwater and sewage services \u2014 all costs that landlords may pass onto tenants. Since July 1, the city also added a new, contentious fee<\/a> on trash pickup<\/a>, a move that has been studied since voters narrowly passed Measure B<\/a> in 2022.<\/p>\n

Elo-Rivera\u2019s office introduced the new renter protection because his team worried the trash fee would create more opportunities for landlords to overcharge tenants for a profit. The new trash fee won\u2019t apply to large apartment buildings, which have to pay for private trash pickup, but it does affect smaller complexes, like townhouses and duplexes.<\/p>\n

What rights do renters have under the new policy?<\/p>\n

While state law already prohibits landlords from overcharging tenants, some San Diego renters have for years suspected that landlords and third-party utility billing services have been charging them more than their fair share.<\/p>\n

They just haven\u2019t always had the resources to prove it.<\/p>\n

The issue went to court in 2022 after a handful of San Diego tenants filed a class action lawsuit<\/a> against the company Conservice<\/a>, a popular option landlords turn to for calculating and charging renters\u2019 utility bills. Renters accused Conservice of lacking transparency because the company refused to supply renters with copies of their landlord\u2019s utility bills so tenants could verify whether they were being overcharged.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The new renter protection would require landlords to give all tenants a letter detailing their right to review the landlord\u2019s city utility bills and formula used to calculate each renter\u2019s utility charges. (Photo courtesy of Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera)<\/p>\n

The new renter protection aims to give San Diego renters those resources. The ban would not only make it illegal for landlords to charge tenants more than what they pay to the city for utilities \u2014\u00a0excluding late fees \u2014 but it would also give renters the right to request the landlord\u2019s utility bill and the formula used to calculate each tenant\u2019s utility charges.<\/p>\n

Landlords must also disclose to renters any fees they\u2019re charging for third-party utility billing services under the new policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a massive power imbalance that exists between tenants and landlords,\u201d Elo-Rivera said at a May council committee meeting about the new renter protection.<\/p>\n

\u201cLarge corporate housing companies exploit this to charge renters whatever amount on their utilities they can get away with because the tenants do not have the power to fight it, nor the luxury to move without potentially uprooting their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Utility overcharges part of cost-of-living crisis<\/p>\n

As the council has considered the reform over the last few months, tenants have championed the new policy because it requires landlords to be more transparent.<\/p>\n

For those tenants, hefty utility fees are just one component of San Diego\u2019s cost-of-living crisis. Housing costs in America\u2019s Finest City have ballooned to become some of the highest levels in the country<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Natalie Raschke, a homelessness advocate at San Diego nonprofit Lived Experience Advisers<\/a>, is no stranger to the issue. She and family were homeless for over two years after she and her husband lost their service jobs during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Now, Raschke\u2019s family rents an apartment in Mission Valley. There, Raschke told a council committee in May that her family pays a monthly trash fee of $102 to a third-party billing service \u2014\u00a0over double the highest pickup fee<\/a> currently charged by the city. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese hidden fees have got to stop,\u201d Julie Porter, Raschke\u2019s colleague and a fellow renter, told the council at a meeting last month about the new tenant protection. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has to be transparent \u2014 know upfront what you\u2019re going to be paying, instead of nickel and diming for this water fee and that sewer fee and that trash fee.\u201d<\/p>\n

As of June 30, Zillow data<\/a> indicates that the average rent in San Diego was nearly $3,150 a month \u2014\u00a0over $1,000 more than the national average.<\/p>\n

Elo-Rivera painted the new renter protection as a \u201cnarrow\u201d way to make one aspect of San Diego\u2019s cost-of-living more affordable for renters.<\/p>\n

\"San<\/a>A San Diego house for rent. (Staff\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n

Despite this, landlords and their advocates, like public policy consultant Craig Benedetto, criticized the reform as \u201ca solution searching for a problem.\u201d <\/p>\n

Benedetto told a council committee in May that he didn\u2019t know of any cases of utility overcharging among the landlords he works with at his consulting firm, California Strategies<\/a>. <\/p>\n

He acknowledged, however, that it could be possible other landlords were overcharging renters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recycling and trash bins line an alley in Ocean Beach. (File photo by Thomas Melville\/Beach & Bay Press)…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":67144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,24738,3549,7724,7264,22511,47524,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,17084],"class_list":{"0":"post-67143","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-renters","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-san-diego-city-council","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-sean-elo-rivera","16":"tag-trash-fee","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa","23":"tag-utilities"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114862798291541639","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}