Utilities in Lynn rentals: who pays, and what a shutoff costs

Who pays for what in a Lynn rental is not a matter of lease-drafting freedom. The State Sanitary Code sets the default — the owner provides the electricity, gas, oil, and water — and permits shifting a utility to the tenant only when a meter serves that unit alone and a written agreement says so. Water is stricter still: billable only through a submetering regime with licensed-plumber installation, mandatory low-flow fixtures, and a certificate filed under the penalties of perjury. And c.186 §14 makes the utilities themselves protected — a willful shutoff, or a bill transferred into your name without your consent, carries a criminal fine and a civil floor of three months' rent. This page lays the rules out at today's Lynn rents.

What this page is: who must pay for each utility in a Lynn rental, when a bill can lawfully be shifted to the tenant, and what shutoffs and billing games cost — each rule linked to its official source and priced at today's actual Lynn rents. It is not legal advice — when it matters, read the linked source or use the free legal help on our tenant rights page.

The default: the owner provides it, and a lease can only shift what's separately metered

105 CMR 410.200(A) is the electricity-and-gas rule: "The owner shall provide the electricity or gas used in each dwelling unit unless: (1) Such electricity or gas is metered through a meter which serves only the dwelling unit or other area under the exclusive use of an occupant of that dwelling unit... and (2) A written rental agreement provides for payment by the occupant." Both conditions must hold — a lease clause alone shifts nothing if the meter also serves the hallway or a neighbor, and a separate meter shifts nothing without the written clause. If the owner is the one who must pay, the code lets the building stay master-metered; if the tenant pays, the meter must be exclusively theirs. Heating oil runs on the same two-part structure (410.210: a separate tank serving only that unit, plus a written agreement), and the heating system itself — the 68°F/64°F temperatures it must deliver in season — is covered on our repairs page. Source: 105 CMR 410.200/410.210 (State Sanitary Code)

Water is the strict one: the c.186 §22 submetering regime or the landlord pays

A Lynn landlord may bill a tenant for water and sewer only through the full machinery of c.186 §22, and 105 CMR 410.130(C) makes sanitary-code compliance turn on it: a licensed plumber installs a submeter that measures "only water that is supplied for the exclusive use of the particular dwelling unit"; every fixture first gets certified water-conservation hardware — the statute sets the numbers itself: showerheads at no more than 2½ gallons per minute, faucets 2.2, toilets 1.6 gallons per flush; a written rental agreement describes the billing; and the owner files a certificate with the board of health signed under the penalties of perjury. Even then, a unit becomes eligible only at the commencement of a new tenancy — water billing cannot be imposed on a sitting tenant, and a tenant who relocated involuntarily from another unit in the same building doesn't count as new. Two guardrails survive all the paperwork: the owner "may not shut off or refuse water service to an occupant on the basis that the occupant has not paid a separately assessed water/sewer usage charge" (410.130(D)), and the occupant gets access to the submeter to verify it works (410.130(E)). Source: M.G.L. c.186 §22 · 105 CMR 410.130

The §14 surprise: moving the bill into your name without consent is the same offense as a shutoff

General Laws c.186 §14 is best known for shutoffs — a landlord obligated to furnish utilities "who willfully or intentionally fails to furnish such water, hot water, heat, light, power, gas, elevator service, telephone service, janitor service or refrigeration service." But the same sentence reaches a quieter move: any landlord "who transfers the responsibility for payment for any utility services to the occupant without his knowledge or consent" — read live and quoted verbatim today. Discovering the electricity account has been moved into your name, or a new "utility fee" on the ledger you never agreed to, is not a billing mix-up: it sits in the same quasi-criminal statute as cutting the power — a fine of $25 to $300 (or up to six months' imprisonment), plus civil liability for actual and consequential damages or three months' rent, whichever is greater, plus costs and attorney's fees — all of which the statute says may be applied in setoff against rent owed. §18's anti-retaliation protections attach to anyone who reports or proceeds against a violation. Source: M.G.L. c.186 §14

Landlord shutoffs, including the indirect kind

§14 does not require the landlord to touch a breaker: it also reaches one "who directly or indirectly interferes with the furnishing by another of such utilities or services" — letting a master account lapse until the company disconnects is interference with the furnishing, not an accident of paperwork. The statute writes its own narrow exceptions: restrictions imposed by government, and interruptions "during the time required to perform necessary repairs." If the service that failed is heat, the exact temperatures and the inspection-first sequence are on the repairs page — including the board of health's duty to inspect on any request, oral or written, with anonymity if you ask (410.600). Source: M.G.L. c.186 §14 · Attorney General's guide to landlord and tenant rights

The triple-decker classic: the hallway light on your meter

The code carves out exactly one lawful version of the oldest Lynn utility complaint. In residences of two or three dwelling units, light fixtures for a common hallway, passageway, foyer, or stairway may be wired to a unit's meter — but only if a written rental agreement states that the occupant pays for the common-area lights, and the arrangement may begin only at the commencement of a new tenancy (410.300(F)). Outside that carve-out, common-area or other-unit usage flowing through a meter you pay is a sanitary-code violation — 410.200(A)'s tenant-paid meter must serve only your unit. The lever is the same as any code violation: a board of health inspection on request, and the repair machinery if the landlord doesn't fix the wiring or take back the bill. Source: 105 CMR 410.300(F)

When it's the utility company, not the landlord, threatening shutoff

Company-side shutoffs run on different machinery than §14. A gas or electric company may not shut off — or refuse to restore — service "during such time as there is a serious illness therein," when a physician or the board of health certifies the illness in writing and the customer can't pay because of financial hardship (c.164 §124A, read live today). The Attorney General's guide collects the related household protections — including the winter moratorium period for hardship households heating with the service. These protections ride the account with the company. If the account is in trouble because it is the landlord's account, the §14 machinery above is the tenant-side lever — and help paying an overdue utility bill runs through many of the same doors as help paying rent, on our rental-assistance page. Source: M.G.L. c.164 §124A · Attorney General's guide to landlord and tenant rights

The winter rule: no heat-related shutoff from November 15 to March 15 for hardship households

The winter protection has its own statute. Under c.164 §124F, no gas or electric company shall "between November fifteenth and March fifteenth shut off gas or electric service to any residential customer who cannot pay an overdue charge because of financial hardship, when such gas or electric service is used to provide heat or to operate the heating system of the customer's unit or building." The second half matters for homes that heat with oil: the regulation counts an account as heat-related when the service "is used to activate the space heating system" (220 CMR 25.01(2)), so an electric account that only runs the burner is covered. The Department of Public Utilities' regulation fills in the rest (220 CMR 25.00, read September 27, 2026). Financial hardship means being unable to pay an overdue bill while meeting the income limits of the fuel assistance program (LIHEAP), or a finding by the Department's Consumer Division (25.01(2)). The claim can start with a phone call; the company must then send a financial hardship form, due back within seven days of receipt (25.03(2)). A household that received fuel assistance last winter is presumed to qualify and is protected from November 15 through January 1, to give it time to apply again (25.03(3)). If a company representative arrives to shut off service and an occupant claims protection, the shutoff is postponed for 72 hours (25.03(7)). Two limits, stated as plainly as the regulation states them. The winter protection covers service that "has not been shut off for nonpayment before November 15th" (25.03(1)(a)3) — so the time to deal with a shutoff notice is before that date. And nothing in the rule cancels the charges: it stops the shutoff, not the bill. Two protections run all year, not only in winter: a home with a child under 12 months, on the same financial-hardship test (25.03(1)(a)2), and a household in which every resident is 65 or older, where the company must first secure the Department's written approval (25.05(3)). The regulation applies to gas, electric and water companies and municipal gas and electric plants (25.01(1)); a delivered fuel such as heating oil is not on that list. Source: M.G.L. c.164 §124F · 220 CMR 25.03 (Cornell LII) · 220 CMR 25.01 — definitions (Cornell LII) · 220 CMR 25.05 — elderly households (Cornell LII)

If the delinquent account is the landlord's: 30 days' notice to every tenant, and a way to keep the service on

When the unpaid account belongs to the landlord, the company cannot simply pull the meter on a building full of tenants (220 CMR 25.04, read September 27, 2026). It must give the landlord written notice with a termination date at least 37 days out, and then give written notice to each residential unit likely to hold an affected tenant — no sooner than seven days after the landlord's notice and "in no event" less than 30 days before the termination — and post the same information in the common areas (25.04(4), (6)). The tenant notice must spell out the tenant's statutory rights: to deduct any direct payment to the company from rent then or thereafter due, to be protected against retaliation by the landlord for doing so, and to recover money damages for any such retaliation (25.04(6)(e)). Then the practical part: at any time before or after the service is cut, tenants may apply to have it continued or resumed, and the company must comply if it receives from the tenants an amount equal to a projected bill for the next 30 days (25.04(7)(a)) — the regulation asks tenants for the coming month, not for what the landlord already owes. The winter, serious-illness and infant protections above apply to landlord accounts as well (25.04(3)). This sits alongside §14: paying the company keeps the heat on, and the landlord who let the account lapse still answers for the interference. Source: 220 CMR 25.04 — landlord accounts and tenants (Cornell LII) · M.G.L. c.186 §14

What a landlord shutoff is worth at today's Lynn rents, by ZIP

The average Lynn rent is $2,342/month as of September 2026 (how we compute this). Running the §14 floor — actual and consequential damages or three months' rent, whichever is greater — at each ZIP's current average:

Read the last column as a floor, not a promise: it is what the remedy provision guarantees a winning claim is worth at that rent — plus attorney's fees — not a prediction about any particular case. Documentation decides cases: the shutoff dates, the bills, the notices (photograph them), and every message about who was supposed to pay.

Honest caveat: these are smoothed market averages (Zillow's ZORI index — methodology), not your lease. The remedies run on your actual rent, whatever it is — the table shows the scale at typical Lynn rents.

If the utility fight is part of a bigger one

Utility disputes rarely travel alone: when the service failed because something broke rather than because a bill lapsed, the repairs page has the deadlines and temperatures; the other winter question — who clears the snow and ice off the stairs, the walks, and the sidewalk — is on the snow-and-ice page; a shutoff aimed at making you leave is the illegal-eviction playbook — how eviction lawfully works here, including the lockout ban; the utility clauses worth reading before you sign are on the move-in cost page; help with an overdue bill runs through many of the same programs as help paying rent; and if the building's economics are the real problem, each ZIP's current average (01905, 01902, 01901) says what leaving costs. And if the rent is paid with a Housing Choice Voucher, the utilities you pay yourself are not just a bill — they are a dollar figure the housing authority adds to the rent before it is measured against the payment standard; the utility-allowance page has the schedule.

First published July 30, 2026 · Page last updated October 18, 2026 · rent index data through September 2026.