Unless you have a competent PM handling everything for you, you need to become good at evaluating people's behavior and past history, and reading between the lines, while at the same time treating everyone fairly.

Okay the 4 unit buildings when built in 1981 have one meter going in.There is no sub meters.Fulton county water stated that is what the builder requested in 1981.Fast forward to today.Fulton county does not do sub metering for these buildings.The water company stated these buildings only have a 3/4 line meter on one and 1 inch line meter on the others.Water bill has been high.We fixed a bunch of leaks and filed leak adjustments to Fulton county.Water company says they can test meter to make sure it reads right.Previous owner had high readings as well.Some tenants are only supposed to have 2 to 4 people living there on lease.End up having 8 to 10 people and they use the water constantly even with no leaks.Currently we provide water,sewer,trash into the total rent.We have to do it this way because with one line if the 3 tenants pay the bill but one does not the water company will cut off water to the whole building and lien it.Since it is one line into the building even if all leaks are fixed I can't go up to a tenant without proof they are using more water.I can tell tenant with an adjusted lease they are responsible for any usage after 50 bucks a month but they might not pay the difference.My plumber told me of a company that will install individual meters and then bill the tenants directly.Have any of you had experience with these companies?

A bunch of other stuff I was planning to get done in January will slide to February.On the day job, I have no choice but to be very pleased.

Rather than ask a bunch of question to see if they meet my minimum criteria, I just tell them what it is.

Fair enough, thanks for the help guys.

Thanks everyone.Carole yes there is limits.The problem is catching all the people there at once for a violation.If the code enforcement walks in and doesn't actually see all the people then there is nothing they can do.Had this happen in another county where there were a bunch of people occupying a house next to my property.The inspector only worked 9 to 5 Monday through Friday.Many of the people worked and were gone when the inspector could come by.Thus they could never do anything about the situation.This is why I think as a deterrent if we charged 50 bucks a head there would be no benefit for them bringing in all these people because the landlord would get the money.

You are fairly new to BP but I have answered this same type of question quite a few times in the past and many on here probably sick of hearing me say the same thing so I would urge you to go do some research on some of my previous posts and threads.

Since you already know your numbers, any concern that they wont represent you fairly goes out the window.

I had my property manager do a quick survey of my tenants and the results were fairly disappointing, none of them have a credit card.

I know about assigning the option but what if I have a constructed a fair deal with both seller and tenant buyer where there is a good amount in difference between the two option prices, how do I avoid being cut out from the bank?