Hey guys and gals, hoping for some advice on how you manage our water utility bills. We own two duplexes and currently our renters pay all utilities except water. When we first got into real estate a local investor told us to always keep water in our name because it was a bigger issue if it gets cut off, so we have done that so far and haven't really thought about it much. That being said we have tried to average out the water bills and add them to our rent costs but in the last year, with new families have had water bill spikes that are way greater than what we typically budget for as they are washing cars more, using sprinklers for the kids outside, or have a leaking toilet they were unaware of. I am curious how everyone else handles water bills, do you have your renters put them in their name and handle them like a normal untily, or do you just manage it yourself? Some additional info is that one of our duplexes has separate water lines, while the other duplex has 1 main water line that splits to both units (making this one a little harder to have in a single renters name). Let me know if you have any questions that I could answer that would be helpful.

Hoping to hear how others manage this. Thanks for all your help!