What locators should tell renters about utilities

Apartment locators are often the last professional a renter trusts before they sign, so your description of the utilities becomes the one they pack. Utility Connect sets up internet, TV, security, home warranty, and deregulated electricity with them on a call. Gas, water, trash, and regulated electric that are not included in the rent are researched and sent to them. They enroll in those. If your follow-up text says you set up the city accounts, you have promised a step you cannot take and that we will not take.

Ask the community first

Before you tell a client what they will owe, ask leasing which services are included, which are billed back, and which are in the resident's name. Write it down per community. Two properties on the same block split electric differently. Send us the legal unit address, not only the floor-plan nickname. If there is a bulk cable contract, say so, so the call does not set up a provider the building will not allow.

What the client should hear

Which bills are in the rent, as leasing stated
Which remaining services are set up on the Utility Connect call
Which local utilities they must enroll, with the notes from that call
That a locator cannot call the water department as them
That "available" is not an account

Say this when they apply, not at key pickup. A paragraph you skip on Fridays is not a process.

Three different payments

The call is free to the household. The community may still charge an application fee. A local utility may still want a deposit, paid to that utility, when the resident enrolls. A service set up on the call is paid to that provider on their bill. Clients who think your placement fee covers water will be angry at you and at us. Split the payments in the same text.

Do not quote a municipal deposit from memory. The provider decides it when the resident enrolls. You can warn that a deposit is common.

After they sign

Send the link again with the possession date, and ask them to use that date on the call and on the local enrollments. If they forward a local confirmation, "keep that email" is enough. If they ask you to finish water because they are tired, decline and point them at the notes. Doing it once trains the next client to expect it, and the city still will not take the order from you.

Common questions

Can I say internet is included because the clubhouse has wifi?

No. Confirm whether the unit has a bulk plan. If it does not, internet is set up on the call with a provider that can serve that unit.

What if the property starts electric for every resident?

Get that policy in writing and describe it as the property's process. Many of those programs still require the resident to complete a form. If the resident is the account holder, the resident finishes it. If the market is deregulated and the property does not start it, the plan is set up on our call.

Where do I send them?

To apartment locators for a partner introduction, and to the call once you have the unit address. The sentences to copy are in what partners should say.