ADU & Utilities (any advice?)

[Seth Thompson]

Good Evening all. So back in 2018 i purchased a SFR with an attached Accessory Dwelling unit that had been approved and built back in 2012. I went to the county and got seperate addresses for the property (Unit A/Unit B). everything was going good until earlier this year whenever the water company decided that they were going to charge me seperate bills based on the units of this property. This water company is a community well with no individual meters. It's a flat rate billed every quarter with as much water usage as you want. However, i just received the bill for this upcoming quarter and between the two units, its $650.00 for 3 MONTHS! Im lookin for some advice because this just seems extremely unreasonable. i'm located in washington state. Not exactly a drought area. Furthermore, the property is still considered an R-1. The director of the water company is saying that since i got separate address's for the property that he can justly charge me twice because it's considered a duplex. I informed him that it in fact is not a duplex but a SFR zoned R-1. Im sure many of you know the fine line Accessory Dwelling Units have to walk, but something about this doesn't feel right. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

Best Regards,

Seth Thompson