When owners pay water bills in multi-family apartment buildings, tenants seem to think it is their right to us the water because they pay their rent, however what they don’t realize is that their rent may not cover their the water bill. I personally have walked in to some apartment buildings and have seen first hand that tenants do not report sinks leaking, toilets running, when they have no responsibility for paying for the water that they use. It is really sad that they don’t see that there are places around the world that don’t have water, and they can go through 5,000 a day with a running toilet.
I took over managing a 20 unit apartment building in Norfolk in August of 2013 and the water was around $1300 a month. September 1, 2014 all the tenants started paying their portion of the water bill based on the Ratio Utility billing, or (RUB). This is a formula that takes account of the number of occupants in each unit, number of occupants in each building, Square footage of each unit, and also number of days the tenant (s)was in the unit for the billing period. This method produces the most equitable ratio per unit, and fairly distributes the cost among all residents of the building or complex. I am proud to say that as of August 14 the entire water bill for all 20 units was $798.00. Not only are tenants actually conserving water, but they don’t want their water bill to go up. Due to the out of pocket expenses in their budget increasing, I have more tenants than ever contacting me to report leaks, toilets running, or even unauthorized occupants in the apartments. I now have a very tight control over who comes and goes from that property just based on the tenants only wanting to pay their fair share.
Ocean viewI have learned very quickly that when there are no direct consequences for actions regardless of what they are, people tend not to even think about what they are doing, or even bothering to put any effort to correct the situation. I have seen 1st hand how implementing tenant water bills has changed the over all water consumption of my 20 unit Multi-Family buildings almost 35%, and also adding cash flow to my owner’s pockets.
If you'd like to learn more about this topic, please feel free to reach out to us at Doud Realty Services. We offer Property Management in Portsmouth, Norfolk and the greater Hampton Roads area.