Utility Setup: The Building Utility Guide and Move-In Utilities

Tell each resident which utilities to put in their name, who to call and by when, see who has done it, and find where a lease and your utility bills disagree.

Utility setup tells each resident which utilities are theirs to put in their own name, who to call and by when — and tells you who has done it. You write a utility guide for your buildings once; every resident moving in or out sees the part that applies to their home, with the provider’s phone number and links. Landlords and managers find it under Residents → Utilities on the website, and in the Utility setup, Utility guide and Utility providers screens of the iPhone and Android apps. Residents find it under My home → Utilities, and in My utilities on either phone.

Seayora does not contact any utility company and does not open an account for anybody. The provider details are the ones you enter, and "done" is the resident telling you.

Who handles each utility

For each utility, the guide says who handles it. Only the first two ask the resident to do anything.

The utilities are electricity, gas, water & sewer, trash & recycling, heat, internet, tv, other.

The guide, and the lease

• Write an account-wide guide once, and it applies to every building. Give a building its own entry for a utility when that building is different — it replaces the account-wide entry for that utility only.
• Each entry can name a provider from your provider list, add your own instructions ("the gas is in the building’s name until you move in — call by the 25th"), and a number of days before move-in to do it by.
• The lease is the agreement of record. When a lease says the landlord pays for a utility, or the tenant arranges it, that is what the resident is shown, whatever the guide says — and you are told the two disagree so you can fix whichever is wrong.
• Nothing in the guide changes a lease.

When nobody has written anything, the answer for each utility comes from the first of these that says something:

Where your records disagree

Utility setup lists every place where a lease and your guide or your utility bills say different things. The sharpest one is a utility your building bills back to residents (through Utility billing) on a lease that says the landlord pays for it: a share added to that lease’s rent is a charge the lease does not allow. A utility billed back on a lease that says the tenant pays the provider directly means the resident pays for it twice.

Moving in and moving out

• A resident sees what to set up from 60 days before their move-in until 30 days after it, and what to stop or transfer from 60 days before their lease ends until 14 days after.
• Each one shows the provider, the address to give them, your instructions and the date to do it by. The resident marks it Done (or Not needed), and can add the date service starts or stops and the provider’s confirmation number.
• The confirmation number is the resident’s. You are told that one was given, never what it is, and Seayora deletes it 180 days after it was recorded.
• You can record one for a resident who told you in person. A confirmation number you type on their behalf is not kept.
• When every utility for a move is recorded, the utilities step on the move-in or move-out checklist ticks itself.
• A resident can email the whole list to themselves from My utilities.

Reminders

Reminders are off until you switch them on in Utility setup settings. With them on, a resident who still has a utility to set up is reminded 7 days before move-in, and one who still has a utility to stop is reminded 7 days before move-out (you can choose 1 to 30 days). Each resident is reminded once per move, in the app and by email.

Providers

Your provider list is the companies residents call: a name, a phone number, the provider’s website and its "start or transfer service" page. Links must start with https://. Removing a provider keeps the guide entries that named it; they just stop naming a company.

A connected assistant can tell a resident which utilities they need to set up and who to call, and tell you who has done it and where your records disagree. Marking a utility done is done in Seayora.

Related features and guides

• Move Checklists: the Steps Before and After Moving Day — Documentation. A checklist for every move-in and move-out that both you and the resident can see — steps Seayora ticks for you from what has already happened, plus your own steps for keys, utilities and a forwarding address.
• Resident Pulse: How Residents Feel About Each Building — Documentation. See the tone of what residents tell you and the topics they keep raising, building by building — counted from their own messages to you and their repair surveys, never about any one person.
• Custom Fields on Properties, Leases, Residents and Work Orders — Documentation. Add your own fields — a parcel number, a gate code, a lender, an insurance policy — to every property, lease, resident or work order, fill them in on the website or either app, and choose which ones residents can see.
• Compliance Alerts & Required Filings — Feature. Seayora watches your properties for new violations and works out which recurring filings each building owes, turns both into a dated checklist, and emails you when something new appears. Live violation data for New York City; rule-based filing obligations across the NYC metro.
• Bills & Accounts Payable — Feature. Enter and track bills, manage vendor payables, and tie each cost back to the property, unit, or job that generated it.
• Vetted Contractor Network — Feature. Dispatch maintenance to identity-verified service professionals in your area, or bring your own contractors onto the platform — with quality tracking on every job.

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