If your lease does not say you pay for electricity, Massachusetts law generally puts that cost on the landlord. But this case shows you may not get back every dollar you paid. The Appeals Court affirmed a Housing Court award that measured the tenant’s damages only from the date she served a c. 93A demand letter, and that treated an earlier repayment from the landlord as settling the metering problem. This is an unpublished Appeals Court decision under Rule 23.0, which courts may cite as persuasive but not as binding precedent.
What happened
The tenant rented an apartment in 2017. The rental agreement did not say who would pay for electricity, but the parties agreed orally that the tenant would. In 2018 the landlord installed a ductless mini-split heating and cooling system, and the tenant’s electric use went up even with the system off. The landlord found that another unit’s electricity was being counted on the tenant’s meter and paid the tenant $345 to cover the difference. The tenant’s lawyer later sent a c. 93A demand letter, and the tenant brought a small claims case in the Housing Court asking for all the electricity she paid during the tenancy plus attorney’s fees. After the landlord appealed a clerk-magistrate’s award, a Housing Court judge awarded $334.40 in actual damages, the same amount again under c. 93A, and $442.50 in attorney’s fees. The tenant appealed, arguing she should have received more.
What the court decided
The Appeals Court affirmed in Perrault v. Brooks, No. 23-P-1441 (Mass. App. Ct. August 22, 2025) (Rule 23.0 decision).
The utility rule. Under the State Sanitary Code in effect during this tenancy, 105 CMR 410.354 (2005), a tenant could be made to pay for electricity only under a written agreement. The current rule, 105 CMR 410.200, requires both a meter serving only the tenant’s unit and a written rental agreement that makes the tenant pay.
Your burden of proof. The tenant argued the landlord should have put the Board of Health inspection report into evidence, and that the judge should have asked for it. The court disagreed. The party who sues has to prove her claims, so offering that evidence was the tenant’s job.
The damages period. The amount of damages is a fact question, reviewed only for clear error. Clegg v. Butler, 424 Mass. 413 (1997). The tenant first asked the landlord to pay the electric charges around December 2018 and served her demand letter around January 2020. The judge measured damages from the demand letter until she moved out, and the court found no clear error. It relied on Poncz v. Loftin, 34 Mass. App. Ct. 909 (1993), where the only violation was failing to put an oral utility agreement in writing and the tenant could not recover the utility costs he had paid.
Accord and satisfaction. When someone accepts a payment offered as full settlement of a disputed claim, that can end the claim. Wong v. Paisner, 14 Mass. App. Ct. 923 (1982). The record showed the landlord offered the $345 as full reimbursement for the cross-metering, and the tenant accepted it on that understanding.
Attorney’s fees. Under G.L. c. 93A, § 9, a tenant who proves a violation recovers reasonable attorney’s fees. The judge reviewed the billing records, used the standard hours times rate method, and set a reasonable amount. That was within his discretion.
Other arguments. The tenant’s claim under G.L. c. 186, § 15D, which requires a landlord to deliver a signed copy of a lease within 30 days, was not in her small claims statement and was barely raised at trial, so the judge could keep the trial focused elsewhere. The judge also had discretion to allow the landlord’s late appeal under G.L. c. 218, § 23, after crediting her account that she never received the judgment by mail.
What this means for you
The lesson is about timing. If you are paying for utilities with no written agreement requiring it, put your demand in writing early. Here damages ran only from the formal demand letter, even though the tenant had asked the landlord to pay more than a year before.
Be careful with partial repayments too. If your landlord offers money to fix a billing problem and you accept it as payment in full, a court may treat that problem as settled.
What to do now
- Read your lease for any written term about who pays electricity, gas or heat.
- If nothing in writing makes you pay, send your landlord a dated letter objecting and asking the landlord to take over the bills.
- Keep every utility bill, and note any sudden jump in use. Ask the Board of Health to inspect if you suspect a shared or crossed meter.
- Before accepting a repayment, put in writing whether it settles everything or only part of what you are owed.
- List every claim in your complaint or small claims statement, with the facts that support it.
If this is your situation, call Doubleday Law at (617) 575-2006 or tell us what happened. Housing Court deadlines are short.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
