Splitting out shared utilities

[Angie Y.]

Hi! I bought a home and converted the garage into an ADU. I rented out the main house already, and all utilities are in the tenant's name. I split off the electric meter for the ADU, so that will be billed separately. However, the water and gas would be prohibitively expensive to split out, so I need to figure out how to handle those utilities and bill seperately. Any suggestions on how to do this? I heard of RUBS, but not sure if that works in this case, if I can do that myself or need a vendor?

[Tim Miller]

We started out splitting the Heat, Water & Sewer on a over/under duplex. After 2 years we were over all this extra work each month. We took the 2 years worth of bills and divide by 24 month to get our average. We upped the rent by $75 a month on each unit to cover the bills. We also put in the lease that anything over $300 for water would be charged to each unit. This ensures they don't waste water. The heat we control remotely, so there's no issues there.

Make your life simple and easy, just up the rent to cover the heat & w/s. You'll sleep a lot easier with less headaches.