Toledo Water Billing Strategies

[Cheryl Mack]

Hello Fellow Sufferers,

I am reaching out to the BP community for feedback on how you handle water billing in Toledo.  

We are trying out use of Landlord-Tenant Authority Forms and waiting for results. 

Backstory: We have never paid water/sewer/trash for our residents, on the theory that people respect freebies less than things they pay for.  So in the past we have received the bills, entered them into our accounting program, and billed to the resident.  Problem #1 came when we didn't know they failed to pay.  So, we began downloading every bill every month...loading the bills into accounting...paying the city for all accounts...and billing the resident.  Some of them paid us timely; some of them didn't, but it was better.  That didn't cure Problem #2: two low estimated bills followed by a whopping big bill for actual use in the third month.  Problem #3: Residents never were able to see the bill unless we emailed it to them (yet another time sink.)

Although upgrades were meant to fix the sticker shock, it has not improved, but gotten worse.  By 2nd half 2021 I was getting such outlandish estimated bills (or no bill at all) I was ready to pull my hair out.  It was taking me 6-10 hours/month to sort out billing for DPU for each of 15 doors and it was difficult to be accurate.  I finally threw in the towel.  The lone option open to us was to get residents to sign the Landlord Tenant Authority Authority Form so they could get the bill directly and pay it themselves. (DPU offers 3 payment options)

So far so good.  We will need to check each account each month to see who has paid and issue 3-day notices if not paid or under payment plan.

I am still not pleased with the billing system, but the residents like getting a bill in hand.  They will still be at the mercy of the Low bill-Low bill-HUGE Bill cycle but I can't help that.  What is your experience? What methods have you tried, and how well did they work for you?

Cheryl

[Ryan Pyle]

Hi Cheryl, I don't own SFR's anymore, but when I did I included water in the rent and just increased the monthly rent by whatever my system-wide average for water usage was. Sometimes I'd come out ahead, sometimes I'd come out behind, but I had enough volume that it pretty much averaged out. There was zero hassle. It also was one less friction point with tenants. For tenants who were high water users, I just gave them bigger rent increases at renewal time. This does work well over time, but you can't sweat it on a monthly basis. Annual rent increases is also key to this working.