Previous owners lied about water bill

[James Johnson]

Hello, I wanted to get some advice on a potential legal situation,

I recently purchased a property where we were told that the tenants had been paying the water bill. We come to find out they had never been paying the bill which is roughly $500/month for all 4 units (total). Naturally this completely kills our proforma.

The leases state that the tenants ar responsible for the water bill so of course we can, and likely will, start enforcing the lease. That being said, we are about the piss off all our tenants because the previous owner never billed them back for the water.

Does anyone have suggestions or advice on how to handle this? Should we be taking the previous owners to small claims court for something? 

Any and all advice is welcome!

Thanks!