New York (WRGB) \u2014 With temperatures beginning to fall, New York Attorney General Letitia James issued a consumer alert reminding residents of their legal rights to essential home utility services during the winter months.<\/p>\n
Attorney General James emphasized that New Yorkers are protected by state law to ensure access to heat and hot water, and that utility companies must follow strict guidelines before shutting off service.<\/p>\n
Attorney General James said,<\/p>\n
New Yorkers have a legal right to heat and hot water services during the winter season. As temperatures drop, I urge New Yorkers to know their rights when it comes to home utilities, and to reach out to my office if they feel their rights are being violated. No New Yorker should be left without heat or hot water as days and nights grow colder.<\/p>\n
According to the Attorney General\u2019s Office, state law provides strong protections for residential customers, including:<\/p>\n
From November 1 through April 15, utilities must make extra efforts to reach a household before shutting off service.Utilities must wait at least 35 days after a bill becomes past due to begin the termination process, and must provide a minimum of 15 days\u2019 notice before shutting off service.Services cannot be shut off during the two-week period that includes Christmas and New Year\u2019s Day.Utilities are prohibited from disconnecting service if doing so would cause health or safety issues, including in households where someone has a serious illness, disability, has recently experienced the death of a family member, or where children are present.<\/p>\n
Attorney General James encourages anyone who experiences an unauthorized shutoff or believes their rights have been violated to file a complaint with her office.<\/p>\n
Consumers can submit complaints online or by calling the OAG hotline at 1-800-771-7755.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York (WRGB) \u2014 With temperatures beginning to fall, New York Attorney General Letitia James issued a consumer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-44617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}