submetering water and charging tenants in MA

[Alex T.]

I'm facing a $2000 water bill for previous month because one of my tenants (in a triplex) left the water running for over a day (she also flooded the two units below). Now, part of the problem is the tenant herself, whom I'm in the process of getting out of the unit. However, for future tenants, I would like to shift the cost of their negligence to them instead of being responsible for it myself.

I've done a bit of research into sub-metering in MA (http://www.mass.gov/courts/case-legal-res/law-lib/...), and it looks like the only requirement is that I also install low-flow toilets/sinks, etc. At first I thought sub-metering itself would be expensive (as with gas), but it looks like the water company is fine with me installing my own submeters and still using a single city meter for the building (http://www.bwsc.org/SERVICES/metering/submetering....).

Based on submeter prices on Amazon, it looks like I may be able to have my plumber retrofit existing water connections and install low-flow everything for under $1000. Does anyone have experience with charging tenants for water in Massachusetts? Any advice? Any new issues I'm opening myself up to?

[Roy N.]

@Ann Bellamy brings-up a extremely important point.   In our experience most jurisdictions adopt the attitude that whatever happens downstream of their meter is your (the owners) responsibility.  It is also quite likely they will not accept partial payments from the tenants in the property.   

When sub-metering, the municipal service typically remains in the owners name and the owner pays the overall bill and then re-bills the individual tenants based on the readings from the sub-meters.