Inspector makes tenants water bill shoot up $3,000

[Neal Collins]

A single family house we manage is under contract to be sold, and during the due diligence phase the inspector left the water running in the kitchen and the bathroom for a full two hours. Water in Portland is billed on a 3 month cycle and the tenants just contacted me saying that their bill jumped from $300 to $3,000 and they believe it is due to the inspector leaving the water running. These are model tenants and we've never had a problem with them for two years we've had them.

Has anyone else run into a problem like this? Someone yesterday was telling me that the water company actually uses the Dec-March time period to determine the rest of the year's billing, which would be a disaster if it was pegged to $3k.

I've got someone checking to make sure there isn't a leak somewhere, but outside of that who takes the brunt of the bill? The buyer because they ordered the inspection? The seller because they are selling the place? The tenant even though they haven't had any say in the matter? 

Thanks for your input!

[Steve B.]

There is no way running the water for two hours would raise a bill by $2,700. More like $40.

Portland bills around 1.5 cents a gallon coming in, then 3 times that as "waste water" going out. A huge portion of the base water cost is fixed and then a variable per gallon charge which is nominal per gallon. I'm doing this from memory but I'm sure that story from the tenant isn't correct. My guess is a busted water main.