HB2459 amends Arizona’s mobile home parks residential landlord and tenant law to clarify and limit how landlords may charge tenants separately for utilities and related services. The bill requires separate meters for gas, water, or electricity when those utilities are billed separately, and it keeps the existing requirement that bills show meter readings and the calculation of charges. It also preserves the rule that landlords may only pass through the utility provider’s charges plus a limited administrative fee, and it specifies that the administrative fee associated with submetering may not exceed $8.
The bill also addresses water-system regulation in mobile home parks by stating that submetering used only to measure individual water use for conservation purposes is not, by itself, a basis for treating a park as a public or consecutive water system under state water law. In addition, it allows landlords to separately charge for waste, garbage, rubbish, refuse, trash, and sewer services, but caps those charges at the prevailing single-family residential rate charged by the local provider or political subdivision. Overall, the measure is a consumer-protection and utility-billing clarification bill for mobile home park tenants and landlords.
Impact
HB2459 would amend A.R.S. § 33-1413.01 within the Arizona Mobile Home Parks Residential Landlord and Tenant Act. Its practical effect is to codify billing standards for submetered utilities, limit landlord administrative fees, and restrict additional markups on utility pass-through charges. It also narrows the circumstances under which mobile home parks can be regulated as public or consecutive water systems based solely on submetering, and it sets rate caps for separately billed trash and sewer services.
Sentiment
The bill appears to have broad support and little visible opposition. It passed the House Commerce Committee 10-0, the House Rules Committee 8-0, and the House Third Reading 57-0, indicating unanimous or near-unanimous approval at each recorded stage. The lack of recorded committee transcripts suggests no major public debate was captured in the available materials.
Contention
No significant contention is evident in the available record. The main policy issues implicit in the bill are whether landlords should be allowed to recover administrative costs for submetering, how high those fees may be, and whether water submetering should trigger broader utility regulation. The bill resolves those issues in favor of tenant billing transparency and fee limits, while also protecting mobile home parks from being classified as regulated water systems based solely on conservation submetering.