Rent-Plus-Utility Trend to Be Discussed

If you are among the tens of thousands of Southland tenants now being billed for utilities on top of your rent, here’s a chance to give state regulators a piece of your mind.

The California Public Utility Commission will host public workshops in Sacramento and Anaheim to discuss the utility-billing trend.

Since 1997, landlords of more than 90,000 apartments in California and 700,000 units nationwide have begun billing tenants separately for water, sewer and trash services once rolled into rent.

About a dozen contractors handle billing for landlords, tacking on their own processing fees. Irvine-based National Water & Power, which bills 330,000 units throughout the nation, is easily the largest.

In California, there are no standards governing their rates, which are typically based on inexact formulas rather than tenants’ actual usage. More than 230 tenants--most of them from Orange County--have filed complaints with the commission about bills that range from as little as $20 a month to more than $50 a month.

The workshops are part of the commission’s ongoing investigation into whether third-party billers can legally impose utility fees and whether such companies should be regulated as utilities.

The Sacramento workshop will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. July 21 in Sacramento State University’s Union Auditorium, 6000 J St. The Anaheim workshop is scheduled for 7 to 9 p.m. Aug. 18 at the Anaheim Convention Center, Rooms 2 and 3.