Q&A: Electric Bill
Electric Bill
Question
About half a year ago I renewed my lease (a large apartment where I live alone), and at that point a clause was added saying that the landlord would pay the electricity. I have a certain level of electricity usage that isn’t especially high, and presumably the landlord took that into account when he agreed to take on the electricity bill.
Now I expect that over the next four months the electricity usage will go up a lot. Three friends and I started working on a project at my apartment, so we’re constantly using all the rooms and the air conditioners will be running full blast, aside from the other standard electricity uses that will now effectively be multiplied by four. I didn’t keep track of the bill in previous months, so it’s hard for me to know the exact differences, but my estimate is that this comes to an increase of 300 NIS per month or more.
If I were the one paying for electricity, I’d ask my friends to share the bills with me.
Is it acceptable (halakhically, legally, morally) to roll this new expense onto the landlord?
Answer
In my opinion, no. Presumably his commitment was based on the assumption that there would be normal personal usage here, and it was with that understanding that he agreed—not beyond that.
Discussion on Answer
There’s no symmetry. He undertook an obligation to you, not you to him.
Also, the electricity usage is in your hands, so when you signed the contract you assessed what your usage would be. He couldn’t know.
What do you mean there’s no symmetry?
We made an exchange deal between us: I get housing services and in return give him some cash. We’re both obligated to each other to exactly the same extent.
If you say the definition is simply “the electricity bill is whatever it is,” then obviously each side takes risks: if consumption suddenly goes up, the landlord loses, and if consumption suddenly goes down, the landlord gains. And if you say that “the electricity bill” means, in other words, an obligation within a certain range of amounts, then obviously if usage goes up a lot the tenant pays, but if usage goes down a lot then the tenant gets a refund.
But the Rabbi is presenting some middle position whose nature I can’t pin down. Can the difference between me and him be defined?
Why is it relevant that the usage is in my hands? My ability to estimate at the time of signing was exactly like his. I didn’t think there would be such a change, and obviously he didn’t think so either, and it turns out that such a change did happen. There was no gap between us in forecasting ability.
These are completely straightforward points, and I don’t see what there is to explain. The landlord’s commitment takes reasonable usage into account. If you decide to raise it beyond that (when the use is not residential but commercial), then you’re in the weaker position. But if you use less, that is still your residential usage, and that is what he committed to. There is a gap between you in the ability to determine the usage, not in the ability to forecast. That’s all I have to explain.
I don’t always understand even straightforward things.
My commitment to him to pay the rent also takes reasonable usage into account, and if I decide to change it downward then he’s in the weaker position.
But okay, fine. A few more shekels won’t kill me. I’ll take the difference from my friends and not out of my own pocket, so I don’t really have any interest at stake here.
Thank you. And if I were suddenly to drastically reduce my electricity usage (for example, if I started working at an office instead of from home and paid for electricity there), would I be able to charge him? After all, I also signed on the assumption that I’d have normal usage, so if I use less I should be entitled to a refund. Somehow it comes out here that the landlord always has the upper hand, and I’m the one left holding the bag.