Los Angeles tenants gathered at City Hall this week to demand the city council outlaw Ratio Utility Billing Systems, the formula landlords use to charge renters for water, gas, and trash costs separately from rent. Organizers say the practice, known as RUBS, can quietly tack on an extra $200 to $400 a month for some renters, turning what looks like a routine utility charge into what they call a backdoor rent increase.
Rene Moya, tenant power coordinator for the Debt Collective, told the rally that RUBS lets landlords extract profit by disaggregating utilities and associated costs from rent, according to MyNewsLA.com. Moya described the fee-setting process as opaque and said RUBS functions as an undeclared rent increase and a form of junk fees. He went further, saying RUBS may be illegal both under the Los Angeles Rent Stabilization Ordinance and under California state law, per the same outlet's report.
Under RUBS, landlords determine tenant utility fees using formulas developed through third-party services, based on factors including occupancy and rental-unit size, rather than billing tenants for their individual metered usage. The Los Angeles Rent Stabilization Ordinance already defines costs associated with living in a building, including utilities, as rent — which is part of why tenant organizers argue RUBS charges should be governed by the same annual caps as rent itself. Under current rules, a rent-stabilized tenant paying $1,000 a month can see a maximum combined RUBS and rent increase of $30 a month, or 3 percent, the report notes.
Landlords Push Back on Claims of Hidden Fees
Daniel Yukelson, executive director and CEO of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, pushed back on the idea that RUBS should be banned outright, urging tenants instead to seek transparency about the formula landlords use rather than eliminate the system entirely. Yukelson said RUBS charges are based on actual utility costs and typically allocate less than 100 percent of those costs to tenants, and that the methodology used to calculate bills has become more sophisticated and precise over time, the article notes. The Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles supports continued use of RUBS across its member properties.
The dispute traces back to a December 29, 2025 staff report from the Los Angeles Housing Department, which recommended prohibiting RUBS altogether in Rent Stabilization Ordinance units, according to Los Angeles City Clerk records. In place of direct billing, the department proposed a one-time rent adjustment based on a tenant's average 12-month utility charges, excluding administrative fees and capped at Housing Authority utility allowance schedules. That recommendation grew out of a February 2022 council motion from Councilmembers Nithya Raman, Paul Koretz, and Mike Bonin, which had originally asked only for utility billing transparency and dispute-resolution tools, not an outright ban.
A Committee Hearing That Never Happened
The Housing and Homelessness Committee has not overseen any action on the proposed RUBS ban, and a hearing scheduled for May 20, 2026, as an agenda item was canceled shortly before the meeting amid opposition from landlord trade groups, according to the California Apartment Association. As of June, LA Public Press reported there was no scheduled committee date for the matter. Tenant advocates say this week's rally at City Hall represents a renewed push to get councilmembers to act on the housing department's report rather than let the proposed ban quietly lapse in committee.
The state legislative backdrop adds another layer of uncertainty. California Senate Bill 7 requires individual water submeters in multi-family buildings constructed after January 1, 2018, but the law is explicitly neutral on whether cities can regulate or ban RUBS in older, master-metered buildings, according to the California Legislative Information archive. That leaves the door open for Los Angeles to act locally, as neighboring West Hollywood already has by banning RUBS pass-throughs under its municipal code, requiring landlords there to absorb utility costs into base rent instead.
Other Cities Offer a Preview — and a Warning
San Jose banned RUBS pass-throughs in rent-stabilized buildings back in 2018, but landlord associations have pointed to data they say shows water consumption rose in affected buildings after tenants lost billing tied directly to their usage, the California Apartment Association has argued. Santa Monica has taken a different route, capping combined rent and utility costs under its rent control framework rather than banning separate utility allocations outright, per the City of Santa Monica. Meanwhile, a statewide bill, Assembly Bill 1248, which would have restricted mandatory landlord fees and limited RUBS allocations to water and sewer service, stalled into a two-year bill in June 2025 after pushback from housing provider groups, according to the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles.
Beyond the trade groups and tenant unions, the Los Angeles for Resilient and Healthy Homes coalition submitted formal public comments in July supporting a citywide ban, arguing RUBS forces tenants to effectively pay for landlords' deferred maintenance and unfixed plumbing leaks. Moya urged tenants facing RUBS disputes to demand transparency about how their bills are calculated, to organize into tenants associations, and to reach out to the LA Tenants Union or the Debt Collective for support. He also encouraged renters to organize despite language barriers, immigration status concerns, or fear of speaking up, reminding them that Los Angeles tenants have rights against discrimination and retaliation.
The RUBS fight arrives as Los Angeles has already moved on other renter protections this year. Hoodline previously reported the city council capped annual hikes at 4% and eliminated per-child rent fees, while Los Angeles County supervisors moved in March to raise the threshold for nonpayment evictions in unincorporated areas. For now, tenant organizers say a citywide RUBS ban would provide renters greater financial predictability and safeguard them from what they describe as excessive, hidden rent increases — but with no hearing date on the calendar, the fate of LAHD's recommendation remains an open question.
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