How should I handle water bill?

Question

We acquired this MF property couple of months ago. It looks like the previous owner paid the water bill for all the tenants whether or not it was included in the lease agreement. We are now in the process of renewing the lease for a few tenants (the ones that are supposed to pay their own water bills).

How should we handle the situation since they are now used to not paying their water bill. Should we just send them the water bill statement or should we attached to that an explanation to why they should now pay their portion of the water bill?

The property is located in MD and the water bill is would be divided by the number of tenants including the laundry unit.

Thank you for your help.

Yengkong Sayaovong · Answer

I would look at the average water bill and increase everyone's rate how you see fit and just say water included. I don't think it's fair for 1 unit to be charge the same amount if the other unit are using say 3x more water. They will probably complain about it as well.

Nathan Gesner · Answer

The legal way to do it is change the terms of the agreement when it's time to renew. You can try to play innocent and bump the rent on all of them and see if they accept it but that could sour the relationship. I think it's best to either raise the rent or pass through their share of the utility as the opportunity presents itself.

Pat L. · Answer

We increase rents to cover it.

Just recently we had a sensor issue with our commercial grinder pump system. To trouble shoot the problem the city guys filled the huge tank several times to test the new sensors. Our water bill was $120 more for the billing period but they will not budge on offering to compensate.

Theresa Harris · Answer

Even though they may not be used to paying the water bill as part of their lease, they are capable of doing so.  I'm guessing that each unit is not metered and they simply pay their portion of the water bill to you.  The only other option is to increase their rent to cover the water bill and then you just deal with one payment, using the average from the previous year.

How should I handle water bill?

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