Repairs, vendors, and receipts

In most single-family rentals the tenant pays the utilities (electric, gas, water, sewer, trash) when the lease assigns them and the accounts are in the tenant's name. In multifamily buildings the landlord more often covers water, sewer, and trash, and sometimes heat, either master-metered or built into the rent. A lease decides the split, but it cannot make a landlord stop maintaining the systems (the tenant pays the gas bill, the landlord still maintains the furnace), and it cannot let a landlord shut off utilities to force a tenant out, which is an illegal self-help eviction in nearly every state. The wrinkle that makes utilities different: in many cities water and sewer bills attach to the property as a municipal lien, so an unpaid tenant water bill can become the owner's problem no matter whose name was on the account. The records that protect you are meter readings and account status captured at move-in and move-out, and proof of who was responsible, because when a final bill or a deposit deduction is disputed the question is not who was supposed to pay but who can prove the readings and the responsibility.