Unpaid water bill in name of tenant 54000 .responsibility to pay tenant or owner

[Salman Ahmed]

Hello 

iam international owner of multifamily property in detroit mi.iam selling my property and have 54000 $ unpaid water bill in name of tenant. Dwsd says it's tenant responsibility but title transfer company is afraid it will be lien on property in future and wants me to pay.As per my understanding tenant account is created after water affidavit and lease documents.Whats the remedy to cure this bill apart from paying.its a huge loss.thanks

[Greg M.]

Quote from @Salman Ahmed:

Hi Bill.indeed it is 54000$.i fail to understand how it came but it is there.i guess there is a leak in property.and it is In name of tenant.

Are you sure you're not missing a decimal place? It says $54,000 and not $540.00?

A quick search produces that "Water rates in Detroit are calculated based on water usage, sewage disposal, and flat service charges for water, sewerage and drainage. The average monthly bill for a family of three in Detroit is $81.62".

The tenant probably never paid it because that is an impossible amount of water to use.

To give you an idea, I looked at the Detroit water system site and including sewer, it's: $90.20 per 1000 cubic feet of water (7.48 gallons per cubic foot). Unless my math is wrong, that's $90.20 for 7480 gallons or 1.206¢ per gallon.

$54,000 / 1.206¢ = 4,477,612 gallons. That's equivalent to about 415 average home size swimming pools.

Get copies of all the bills since the person was delinquent and see what is going on. My guess is a meter read error.