I DECLARE: No Landlords should pay for their Tenants' Water !

[Michael G.]

I am going out on a limb here, and stating emphatically that NO LANDLORD should EVER pay for their Tenants Water Usage. Do you agree?

Here are my reasons:

1.) Personal Accountability: They use it, THEY should pay for it. Landlords don't typically pay for their Tenants' Cooking Gas, Internet, Cable TV, Landline-Phone, Cell-Phone, Electricity, Heating Oil or Gas.... Why should they pay for Water?

2.) Waste: Tenants (Humans, actually) simply don't VALUE what they don't pay for. We used to have a unit where Electricity was 'included' in rent and not broken out. Tenants left lights / AC / heat on all day and racked up crazy bills. Then we got fed up and insisted they pay for it themselves... guess what? Their usage plummeted suddenly. Renters use ungodly, copious, wasteful amounts of things they aren't paying for

3.) Environmental: As a corollary to point 2 above, when Tenants pay their own way, they use MUCH less. This is WAY better for the environment. The less electricity, gas, oil & clean water used the better for ALL of us! Water especially is incredibly expensive to filter & clean and the processing itself expends an incredible amount of Energy

4.) INCREASED NOI: This one's a no Brainer: Lower Expenses for you = More Profit / Cash for you.

EASY RUBS Billing: Before you state that it's complicated b/c Water isnt usually separately metered: No problem. Just apply the RUBS Utility/Water billing system (To anyone who doesn't know what it is, just Google it.) Essentially, you bill each Unit a % of the Building's Water Bill based on Occupancy. If you have 100 Occupants in your Building (Say spread out over 40 units) then each Unit gets billed according to the number of occupants in their Unit. If Unit 1 has 3 Occupants, they pay 3/100ths of the Bill that Quarter. If Unit 2 has 2 Occupants on the Lease, they pay 2/100ths and so on. Easy Right?

This method is 100% legal in most States (Check in your State to be sure) and as long as it's clearly stipulated and agreed-to in your Leases, it's perfectly ok. (We do it, and it's fine!)

SO WHY DO LANDLORDS PAY FOR THEIR TENANT'S WATER AGAIN?

[Michael G.]

Actually, the way we do it is we pay the actual bill, so it always gets paid on time. Then we just add each pro-rata share to our Tenants' next month's bills as Added-Rent due.

It's never been an issue and they always pay it but if push ever came to shove, we wouldn't hesitate for a second to withhold any amounts due from Security Deposits. FWIW, we always send each unit a copy of the building's full water bill plus a brief paragraph explaining the math involved in calculating their share. It's very straight forward.

As I mentioned earlier, we make sure that Tenants agree in their Lease that they are to be responsible for all utilities including water, so it's all up-front & Kosher.

What do you all think?