Water Billing

In Georgia it is required that townhomes/condos be submetered, which we are. Each unit gets billed for water and sewer usage and the water billing company adds on an additional $3.00 fee for their service. We hired a new water billing company and they have added another $3.00 charge on our bill which is listed as "common area water". All common area water was always paid out of the Association's operating fund. Noone seems to know who did this. The billing company said the board instructed them to add this charge to all of the unit owners bills. No vote was taken, nothing in minutes or told to residents as to why this happened. Property manager gave a one line incoherent response. I'm thinking this is illegal, units are billed for their own consumption, common area water is not consumed by individual units. Any help would be appreciated on this. It's very stange and noone will answer why this has happened.

The community is 72 units, and no pool. Irrigation is the only common area water. Each unit's water and sewer usage is paid by the unit owner from when the property was built. Irrigation always came out of operating fund collected from all of the dues. Tacking that charge on to each unit makes no sense. Billing companies bill for usage only. Each unit does not use common area water monthly. I was on the original board and the assn. paid common area water just like common area electricity, etc. To just do this with no explanation is wrong.

I agree that it could be an attempt to raise extra money. I went through all of the board meeting minutes dating back to when the billing company was hired and no board vote is noted on adding this fee to our bills, which would be a violation of the association by laws. Homeowners were never notified and the residents don't even show up to the meetings, nobody cares, frankly. The board never answers any questions and will refer you to the property manager no matter what you ask. We have no amenties, no pool, etc. The only thing they include in maintenance is cooking gas and garbage. I've never heard of common area water being put on residents. Maybe next will be common area electric. They are not strapped for cash, were able to put excess into reserves recently. The current president I had served with previously and he had secret meeting with only half the board and made decisions himself. So basically they can do what they want and nobody in the state can stop them.