Are tenants or landlords paying sewer bills?

Question

One of my Indianapolis properties is in the Ben Davis Conservancy district which assesses a separate bill for sewage. This is a small unique part of Indy that charges a separate sewage bill unlike the rest of the city. When I rented the property out, I arranged to have the bills sent to the tenant and asked my PM to notify the tenants that this was their responsibility. However, my tenant has been ignoring the bills for a year and the district is coming after me for back payment. Unlike water, power or gas, non-payment does not result in a shut-off. After a year of this, my PM is suggesting that this bill has been my responsibility all along. Anybody else have property in this area? If so, are your tenants paying the bill or are you?

Theresa Harris · Answer

Anything that is tied to the property should be paid by you.  You can then either directly bill the tenant or have the cost included in the price of the rent.  Which ever option you chose, needs to be in the lease.  for a few of my rentals, the water bill is tied to the house, so I pay it and then the tenant reimburses me the cost.  For another one, I have added the base amount of water usage to the property and they pay for any overages.

Nathan Gesner · Answer

You instructed your PM to make the tenant responsible. It sounds like they are at fault and should be responsible for paying that bill or collecting it from the tenant.

Is it in writing with the Tenant? If it's not on their lease, it doesn't exist and you'd have a hard time recovering the cost from them.

Is it in writing with the PM? An email or text message? If not, you may have to eat the cost. Then you can decide whether to keep this PM or give someone else a try.

Ric Ernst · Answer

Thanks all. @Mike D'Arrigo I'm sure your right...ultimately I have no enforcement since I didn't have it in the lease. I have properties all over Indy and was unaware of this little niche area with its own separate sewage system and only found out about it months after owning it. @Stephen J Davis I don't have any utilities in my name. This was a bit of an anomaly where the sewage company found me through tax records and started sending me bills. @Harvey Levin yeah kinda wish my PM would have warned me about this and offered a way to handle it ahead of time.

Mike D'Arrigo · Answer

@Ric Ernst Unless it was specified in the lease, you're stuck. Even if it was, you're still responsible since you own the property. The thing to do would have been to add the cost in to the rent.

Nick Giulioni · Answer

I have my tenants.

Harvey Levin · Answer

the way that should have been handled is your lease should have stated that the tenant is responsible and the PM should have been billing the Tennant each month or an average should have been added to the rent. However when you advise the p.m. how you wanted this handled you took control of the situation in your p.m. did everything that you told him to do so you have to accept the responsibility. This is a good reason to let your p.m. be your manager instead of providing direction to the p.m. If you don't have faith that your p.m. knows how to manage your property correctly you probably have the wrong p.m.

Stephen J Davis · Answer

It sounds like the utilities are all in your name. The tenant should have all utilities in their name including sewage. If they can't get them in their name, they are not qualified to be your tenant.

Bill B. · Answer

In Vegas I pay it (because the owner has to) and then I bill the tenant who pays me, as the lease says tenant to pay all utilities.

Trey Williams · Answer

@Ric Ernst I have had this issue on my water bill with a tenant. In Hagerstown, MD the own covers the water bill but I make this part of our lease with the tenant and the tenant has to pay this bill and keep it current as part of their lease. This ensures it is taken care of.