A landlord reversion agreement is a standing instruction to a utility: when the tenant closes the account, move the service into the owner's name instead of shutting it off. Filing one costs nothing. Skipping it is how a vacant unit ends up with no power in February.
The gap it covers is short and predictable. Your outgoing tenant calls the utility, gives a final read date, and the account closes. Your incoming tenant opens an account on their move-in date. Between those two dates the meter belongs to nobody, and what the utility does about that depends on a form you either filed or did not.
What the agreement does
Every utility gives it a different name, and the mechanics are close to identical. The account lands in your name at the moment the tenant's account closes, and leaves your name when the next tenant applies for service.
- BC Hydro calls it a Rental Premise Agreement, described as an automatic transfer of the account to the agreement holder. Without one, BC Hydro says that when a tenant reports a move-out and there is no pending move-in application, the electricity at that property will be disconnected.
- Hydro Ottawa runs a Landlord Reversion Program that places service into your name when a tenant moves out, then back into the tenant's name when a new move-in request is submitted. Account set-up and transfer fees are waived for landlords enrolled in it.
- Toronto Hydro uses one form with two boxes. Tick I Accept Service and you authorize the utility to bill you for electricity service in between tenants, and no set-up charge applies. Tick the other box and you accept that service may be disconnected when there is no active account holder.
What a disconnection costs
Toronto Hydro's declining box is the clearest published summary of the downside, and it lists three things. The utility will not be held responsible for liability or damage resulting from the disconnection, and it names frozen pipes and spoiled food as the examples. Reconnection carries an additional charge. And if service has been off for six months or longer, or the wiring has been changed, an Electrical Safety Authority inspection is required before reconnection.
The heat side is worse than the billing side. A unit with no electricity has no furnace fan and no sump pump, and a winter vacancy without heat is also an insurance question. Read the vacancy or unoccupancy wording in your policy before you decide a gap is short enough to risk.
Step 1: List every account on the unit and who holds it
Write one line per service: electricity, gas, water, and anything rented such as a hot water tank. For each, record the account holder, the account number, and whether the bill comes to you or to the tenant. Most landlords can do this from memory for the first property and get it wrong on the fourth, because a scattered-site portfolio tends to carry three or four different arrangements at once.
Step 2: Ask each utility for its landlord agreement by name
The form is rarely on the front page and the search term matters. Try the utility's own label first: Rental Premise Agreement at BC Hydro, Landlord Reversion Program at Hydro Ottawa, Electricity Service Agreement for Owners, Landlords and Property Managers at Toronto Hydro. Gas works the same way. Enbridge Gas asks Ontario landlords to tell it how they want gas service managed while a property is vacant.
If your utility has no published program, call and ask to be recorded as the owner on the account so you get a call before the service is closed out.
Step 3: Send it back before the move-out, not after
These forms have their own deadlines. Toronto Hydro's asks for your decision within 10 days of receiving the form, and treats no answer as declining service. Hydro Ottawa tells landlords to enrol before the next tenant moves out. The agreement is a standing instruction, so file it once per property and it covers every future turnover, but it does nothing for a move-out that already happened.
Step 4: Put the move-in notice into your lease package
The agreement closes the gap on one end only. The account comes back out of your name when the new tenant applies, so a tenant who moves in and never calls the utility leaves the bill with you. BC Hydro is explicit about both halves: it asks the incoming tenant to give a move-in date at least a week in advance, and says that if notice of a move-in is not provided, the account will remain in your name.
Two fixes, both cheap. Put the utility names, phone numbers and account setup instructions in the welcome package instead of telling people to look it up. Then add a line to your day-14 check: confirm the account transferred out of your name.
Step 5: Treat water as a bill that never leaves you
Municipal water usually works on a different logic than electricity and gas, because the charge follows the property rather than the occupant. In Toronto you can add a tenant or agent as the designate who receives the bill, and the city is direct about what that changes: you still remain responsible for the full payment of all utility bills. An unpaid balance can be moved to the property tax account for collection.
So for water, the useful question is not who holds the account. It is how quickly you hear about non-payment, since the alternative is hearing about it from your tax bill. Keep online access to the account even when the tenant is the designate.
Step 6: Check the vacancy bill against your own dates
When a reversion happens you get a bill for the vacancy period, and it should cover the days between the outgoing tenant's final read and the incoming tenant's move-in date. Compare those three dates before you pay. A final read that lands a week after the tenant handed back the keys, or a move-in date the utility recorded wrong, both show up here and nowhere else. It is also the only bill that tells you what an empty unit costs to keep warm.
The short version
One form per property, filed before the next move-out, keeps the meter live through the gap and hands it to the next tenant automatically. An afternoon of phone calls covers a whole portfolio, and removes an entire category of turnover surprise: the reconnection fee, the inspection before reconnection, and the call about a cold unit on a showing day.