Water and sewer bills - how to pass cost to tenants

[Sam Gill]

I am considering buying a rental in the county.Since the water and sewer bills are associated with the taxes at the year end , is there any way of passing these costs to the tenant (is it possible to get a periodical reading for both???) and if not how do you make sure that the tenants dont run your water and sewer bills to the roof?

[Matt Schelberg]

Baltimore County is great for rentals but the water billing is the absolute worst.  Water bills seem low to tenants, but only because of some slick accounting.  Sewer charges (the most expensive part of the bill...often 3-4x the water bills) are applied to the tax bill the following year.  For a family that uses lots of water it can easily be $1,000/year.  Most tenants can't afford this in one giant lump sum payment so I bill them quarterly based on water consumption. (This also encourages tenants to conserve water.)

The water charges on the most recent Baltimore County property tax bills invoiced owners for sewer charges at a rate of $6.24 per unit of water + $122 flat charge.  

The water bills identify how many units of water were consumed.  So you could bill tenants at $6.24 per unit.

The other crummy way the County bills for water:  there is no online portal for bill retrieval and if you lose a bill you must contact the city to request a water billing history.  (Because the City provides many parts of the County with water.)  

I've attached an image of water billing history as an example. Hope this helps.