Water & Sewer Bills

Hi everyone. Our condo association pays one bill for monthly water and sewer from our utility company. That includes all common area water use AND all the water into the individual units. That is budgeted into everyone's monthly maintenance fees. However lately we've seen a HUGE spike in our bills. Over a two-month period our bills went up 48% compared to the rest of 2007. (We don't have any "seasonal" people here, so that's not a cause.) Some people have six or seven people living there and a lot of people are crying "foul" because those units (obviously) up the water usage.

I'm just curious how other complexes pay their water bills. Should we install meters and have every unit pay their OWN bills? This of course would lower their monthly maintenance fees. Does anyone have a formula for figuring out how much each unit should pay, if we keep it as part of everyone's maintenance fees? I'm just looking for lots of opinions and hopefully some answers. How do the rest of you, in condos do it?

Thank you!

When you see a huge spike, the problem is often an unnoticed leak, sometimes outside the units. Check the actual usage from year to year (make sure the bills are "actuals" vs. "estimates" as some water authorities don't actually read every meter for every period). If you can't explain it, bring someone in to test the pipes.

Many condo associations are single metered. Water companies don't have to spend money on multiple meters, and associations rarely miss paying their bill. The single metered situation is often set up in the documents so a change to individual meters might involve amending the docs and a vote of the owners (probably a supermajority or possibly even 100% depending on your state laws) as it will involve changing a common element.

AnnaD2,

I agree with what JosephW had posted. The plumber, for our HOA had fixed the latest leak and had suggested that we contact the water company for reimbursement of SOME, NOT ALL the expenses we were being billed.

With a repair bill “ringing” in at well over $2,300.00, not to mention the increased water expense, we didn’t hesitate in contacting them as soon as possible to alleviate some of the expense.

We provided several months of the water bills verifying that the increase was not typical use of the water within our association, which was all the proof we needed to justify our claim. It will more than likely take several hours a day however the savings maybe worth the time.

Best of luck, I certainly hope you consider this is a possibility.

Just a suggestion.

Chuck W.

True if the leak is after the main feed it is your responsibility to fix, but if you can prove you fixed it and that it was a leak that caused the increased water usage I have seen a number of cases where the water company will help relieve some of the bill due to the leak. They may take care of all, some or none, just depends on them.

Bob:

You are correct in some areas it is, if that is the case if you present evidence then the bill will be reduced. In my municipality it is one flat rate and doesn't take into account water usage at all.