Utility and similar bills, and what they carry

The rule's phrase is utility or similar bills. It is one of the three items in the two-of set, and it is the one that accumulates: twelve statements at one address describe a year rather than a moment.

The majority-of-days indicator

DOF's residency indicators include majority-of-days occupancy. No household keeps a log of nights, so what gets read instead are the records a household produces anyway: metered service, monthly statements, an account held in one name at one address without a gap.

Consumption is not the test, and the rule sets no threshold. What billing records actually show is continuity? An account opened before the period in question, statements running through it, and no interruption the rest of the file cannot explain.

What counts as similar?

The rule says utility or similar bills rather than naming a utility, and the statutory list of residency indicators is including but not limited to. Recurring statements addressed to the person at the property, in that person's name, are the shape of the thing. Choose the accounts with the cleanest name and address and the longest unbroken run.

Bills are half of a pair

On their own, bills satisfy one half of the two-of set. Pair them with a driver's license or voter registration, or lead with the income tax return and let the bills corroborate it.

And the base set is only half of a response. Whichever of the five criteria you rely on brings its own documents: a lease plus the tenant's own records, relationship certificates or affidavits, organizational documents plus an officer or trustee affidavit. Bills speak to the residency half of the answer. They say nothing about the status half.