Water use

Started by JohnD56 • 18 replies • 1277 views

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JohnD56 (North Carolina)
Posts: 9

Posted:

I live in North Carolina and my question is regarding what responability the board should play in this issue. This is a community of Town Homes. Water costs are included in the HOA dues and there is only 1 meter for the community. This water use has not been a major issue but over the past few years the face and households have changed taking the community from a primarily owner occupied 1 to 3 person household to a large number of rental units some having 5 children not counting the 1-3 adults. There has been an ever increasing amount of water usage with the bill rising continuously well above the typical average for this city. The board has installed water turn off boxes for every set of buildings costing probably around $40,000 looking for leaks and found some minor ones which had no significant affect on water usage. They had also offered to pay plumbers to install new toilets and faucets with the owner paying for material costs from the plumber and the hoa paying the labor for installations. It is pretty clear the increased household size primarily in rental units is the problem with the increased water usage as no major leaks have been found but I have personally seen many of the tenants and some owners washing cars numerous times a week along with letting hoses just run water down the street while doing so not to count them letting the children play with the hoses all while wasting the water. So really it appears the lack of concern by tenants and increased household size is the cause of the big jump in water bill increases. My question is this – what should this board be doing given the changing face of the community to make this cost more equitable for the rest of us with 1 – 3 people in the households which is the closer norm for the owner occupied units. They say the water bill is accounting for about $70 a month of the hoa dues per home while the town tells me the typical family water bill per home in the area (not our community) is around $40 a month for a household. I think given the changes in the community and household sizes the board should have some duty to make changes and be proactive to better equalize these costs to where they belong. I pay the same amount for water now in a 1 person home as the family with 7 or 8 people. I have suggested sub-metering and supplied the information to the management company regarding it and have never heard a word about it. Isn’t there some form of fiduciary duty for them to make changes and keep things fair and equitable within the community?

AugustinD
Posts: 5,144

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By JohnD56 on 04/30/2017 12:55 PM
I live in North Carolina and my question is regarding what responability the board should play in this issue. This is a community of Town Homes. Water costs are included in the HOA dues and there is only 1 meter for the community. This water use has not been a major issue but over the past few years the face and households have changed taking the community from a primarily owner occupied 1 to 3 person household to a large number of rental units some having 5 children not counting the 1-3 adults. There has been an ever increasing amount of water usage with the bill rising continuously well above the typical average for this city. The board has installed water turn off boxes for every set of buildings costing probably around $40,000 looking for leaks and found some minor ones which had no significant affect on water usage. They had also offered to pay plumbers to install new toilets and faucets with the owner paying for material costs from the plumber and the hoa paying the labor for installations. It is pretty clear the increased household size primarily in rental units is the problem with the increased water usage as no major leaks have been found but I have personally seen many of the tenants and some owners washing cars numerous times a week along with letting hoses just run water down the street while doing so not to count them letting the children play with the hoses all while wasting the water. So really it appears the lack of concern by tenants and increased household size is the cause of the big jump in water bill increases. My question is this – what should this board be doing given the changing face of the community to make this cost more equitable for the rest of us with 1 – 3 people in the households which is the closer norm for the owner occupied units. They say the water bill is accounting for about $70 a month of the hoa dues per home while the town tells me the typical family water bill per home in the area (not our community) is around $40 a month for a household. I think given the changes in the community and household sizes the board should have some duty to make changes and be proactive to better equalize these costs to where they belong. I pay the same amount for water now in a 1 person home as the family with 7 or 8 people. I have suggested sub-metering and supplied the information to the management company regarding it and have never heard a word about it. Isn’t there some form of fiduciary duty for them to make changes and keep things fair and equitable within the community?

My condominium HOA battles this too. One water meter serves every two buildings. The Board here has used general parts of the governing documents to impose certain water conservation rules, notably on leaking toilets. Remember that a leaking toilet flapper valve or fill valve wastes on average about 200 gallons per day. One new HOA rule is that, when a leak is apparent based on the now digital remote water use reading system, the HOA maintenance staff can enter and do a dye test on the leaking toilet. I think the board is on solid ground legally for the most part. Water use where I live amounts to about 1/6th of the annual revenues.

What do you mean when you say the Board installed water turn off boxes for every set of buildings? Does each unit have its own water supply turnoff valve, securing the supply of both hot and cold water to the unit? Sub-metering is great, if it's physically do-able. Where I am, sub-metering would require significant wall removal and re-piping to achieve.

Your best bet is to get on the board. Else I think a project as big and complicated as sub-metering, for one, will never happen.

JohnD56 (North Carolina)
Posts: 9

Posted:

We are not condo's so they cannot enter the units legally. All town homes here have a shut off on the interior of the units. They had boxes at the street to shut off water to buildings for emergency but it used to be that there was only 1 outside water shut off per 2 or 3 buildings so any work on a shut off valve inside a home meant 3 buildings had to be shut down and they felt adding a box outside each building would allow for better control and help isolate leaks. As far a sub-metering I have had conversation with a company prior to forwarding the information to the board and that company handled everything from contacting owners to gain access for installing and maintaining the wireless water reader and billing monthly and depositing funds in the hos account to pay the water bill. They also collected the payments and worked with non and late payers and the fee per unit they charged was low and would still allow for significant savings to owners on a monthly basis by placing the bill where it should be with those using the water and the units that are rented, the owner would now have the option of making the tenant responsible for the water bill like any other utility they already pay. It could be a win win situation and take the hoa out of the water business primarily and all they need to do is meet with them, discuss it and sign up and all else is done by the sub-metering company. As far as being on the board, I am a past vice president and held position on the board about 5 years prior to this water issue really becoming one. I have had discussion with the newer president and really did not get the feeling it was a very active group of members he has attracted and I am not in a position to take the entire board work on by myself and try an recruit a new group of members (health issues). Again we are town homes and one of the guys on the board now was a person that came to a meeting one time complaining because he needed the light bulb changed in his light fixture (his light, his house, his problem) and another had complained she needed her faucet replaced - really its not an apartment where your paying rent! I just thought they should have some fiduciary or ethical responsibility to do what is right for the people in the community and not just ignore the problem and keep increasing dues.

KerryL1 (California)
Posts: 14,550

Posted:

Are your dues, JohnD, based on a sq. ft. variance where larger units pay more for certain things than smaller ones?

Our condo high rise is that way, with larger units paying more for water, gas and building insurance, than smaller ones. To make such a change probably would require a change to your CC&Rs (covenants; declarations). AND may do no good if several people are stuffed into small dwellings.

(In our case, it's silly as no matter the size, 1,100 sf or 2,600, the vast majority of condos have only 1-2 occupants occasionally 3.

You also might be able to change your CC&Rs to prohibit more than x residents per bedroom. Your municipality might, in fact, have some sort of restrictions. I've herald of 2 + 1 restrictions where there could be 2 people per bedroom plus one other.

You might be able to make a simple Rules & Reg. change to limit car washing to twice a month or whatever. But who'd enforce such a rule?

To your question: No, I do not believe your Board must try to make things fair & equitable re: common expenses, but I'm not in a legal field.

We looked at sub-metering and the cost was prohibitive.

Are there any common area water uses that have increased in recent months, JohnD?

AugustinD
Posts: 5,144

Posted:

JohnD56, unfortunately I do not think there is any legal way to force your HOA's board to sub-meter. Short of rejoining the board, and as it sounds like you have already sadly figured, getting the facts out is your only hope.

I spoke with a few HOA communities in another state that did sub-meter, and they said the savings in water bills astounded. This is consistent with the literature sub-meter companies put out.

JohnC46 (South Carolina)
Posts: 14,265

Posted:

While I cannot recall all the details, in one townhouse development I lived in we went from one master water bill to having a water meter installed in each townhome. Each owner had to allow the association/plumber access to install the meter in their unit (in the basement) and each home was billed separately for water after that. Somehow the meters were read "electronically" as no one came into the home to read them.

Sorry I cannot remember more. I do remember our dues did not change due to the meters being installed.

JohnD56 (North Carolina)
Posts: 9

Posted:

The only thing that changes the dues per month is if there is a basement, garage or carport and that is minimal of $1-$3. The town homes here can vary by around 1,000 sq. ft with some 2 bedroom and others 3 - not counting basement rooms but there is no changes for that. There is a pool but that is the only common water use as there are no sprinklers or such so the increases with a leak ruled out comes specifically from increased people in units. Since we are not condo's we can not restrict the number of people and only city guidelines could be used which would go by bedroom and age and later sex of child and could be near impossible to prove excess. Your place sounds like ours used to be typically 1-3 people but that has changed with renters. The place up the street from me which for 10 years had 2 people has since it sold become a rental which had 6 people last time rented and this time there are 7 and possibly 8 (very hard to tell). I guess the being fair an equitable is just something I lived with as vice president with the then president as we always tried to keep things fair just out of concern for the owners but that seems to be a thing of the past and was just hoping there was some actual responsibility to do so. I know a discussion I had with an hoa attorney one time way back at a seminar had said you had a fiduciary duty to the owners which I took based on that conversation as meaning:
the duty of care - must make informed decisions
the duty of loyalty -act fairly, in good faith, in the interest of, and for the benefit of the owners. But like you said I am also not an attorney.

JohnD56 (North Carolina)
Posts: 9

Posted:

I had looked into the meter installation so each unit would be billed from the town and the cost looked like it was going to be around $4,000 per unit which the hoa cannot afford and they said they could not force an owner to pay for the installation. This is why I started looking into the sub-metering.

JohnD56 (North Carolina)
Posts: 9

Posted:

I knew there wouldn't be a legal way to force the issue. After speaking with the sub-metering company, even with the surcharges which included the meter cost for sub-metering the typical household could be saving $25 to $30 a month while larger households would pay a fair share and maybe start conserving water.

MelissaP1 (Alabama)
Posts: 13,836

Posted:

Our HOA had a single water meter. If you did not pay your dues, we were able to turn the water off to that home. It was also written in our CC&R's about the single water meters. After about 20 years (prior to me living there)the owners decided they wanted separate water meters. One of the main reasons was because when the pipe broke we were forking out thousands of dollars for repairs a year.

Now the process took several years to incorporate. First we had to vote to have separate meters. Once that was agreed upon we had to vote for a special assessment. The expense was well over $20,0000 to have the city come in to do the work. That meant EACH owner had to pay $350 a piece. Which took awhile to collect from all 107 owners. (Some never contributed). Once we got the money, then we had to vote to allow the city to go to tear up the common area to each home. We finally got the meters installed. However, we could NOT forget to change the CC&R's. That took another almost 3 years to change. Another $2 - 3K...

So it's a project you all may want to undertake. Just realize whatever expenses you incur has to be split amongst ALL the owners. That is how a HOA works when you ask them to spend money...

Former HOA President

JanetB2 (Colorado)
Posts: 4,219

Posted:

Quote:

What does your governing documents state on how the water is split between owners? Can it be changed to include # of individuals in household? That potentially is the most fair option unless your HOA would want to vote to have each unit individually metered and each unit owner accept the cost for their unit.

JohnD56 (North Carolina)
Posts: 9

Posted:

The only thing stated in the documents is that the water is part of the hoa dues, other than that it does not discuss anything. I guess they could have a vote to change the documents to charge by the number of people in a household but whats to stop a landlord or resident from saying 2 people when there are 8.... very hard to prove number of people.
So far although I know a few people have had discussions with board members and management company regarding this issue, there has been no return answers with a plan to attack the problem other than what they have done with installing water boxes to each building to look for leaks (which did not show anything significant) or the offer to have a plumber check your house for leaks as I had noted. The property manager did tell me he spoke with the plumber and they both feel the increases are due to the amount of people in units like the rental units which is probably around 40% of the units right now. No real concrete plan appears to be discussed or underway as to what can or should be done to attack the issue. I would personally contact other board members but for the past few years there is no published list of who the board members are. The management company says to send info through them and they will distribute. It is unknown if and when they are having meetings as it is not published, there is no newsletter now to the owners to tell them anything. I missed the annual meeting last year as I was away and have requested by email a copy of the minutes twice now and have never been responded to other than we will look for them. I just question how well things are really being done at this point and if the owners are even considered. I have a friend that placed a request for repairs (not big items) in October of last year and although she has emailed a number of times has heard nothing back and nothing has been done.

LetA (Nevada)
Posts: 2,679

Posted:

I lived in a manufactured home community that faced this very situation. What the MHC installed wifi transmitting water meters on every home, they reduce the monthly lot rent by the average calculation of estimated water usage based on home sq footage, and we were billed for our actual water usage. In the end I was actually paying a little less than I was before, and those families wasting water was on the hook for their high water bills. In the end the community had more money in the coffers for community improvements because they weren't shelling out tons of money on people wasting water.

JanetB2 (Colorado)
Posts: 4,219

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By JohnD56 on 05/01/2017 5:06 AM
The only thing stated in the documents is that the water is part of the hoa dues, other than that it does not discuss anything. I guess they could have a vote to change the documents to charge by the number of people in a household but whats to stop a landlord or resident from saying 2 people when there are 8.... very hard to prove number of people.
So far although I know a few people have had discussions with board members and management company regarding this issue, there has been no return answers with a plan to attack the problem other than what they have done with installing water boxes to each building to look for leaks (which did not show anything significant) or the offer to have a plumber check your house for leaks as I had noted. The property manager did tell me he spoke with the plumber and they both feel the increases are due to the amount of people in units like the rental units which is probably around 40% of the units right now. No real concrete plan appears to be discussed or underway as to what can or should be done to attack the issue. I would personally contact other board members but for the past few years there is no published list of who the board members are. The management company says to send info through them and they will distribute. It is unknown if and when they are having meetings as it is not published, there is no newsletter now to the owners to tell them anything. I missed the annual meeting last year as I was away and have requested by email a copy of the minutes twice now and have never been responded to other than we will look for them. I just question how well things are really being done at this point and if the owners are even considered. I have a friend that placed a request for repairs (not big items) in October of last year and although she has emailed a number of times has heard nothing back and nothing has been done.

That is pretty high rental rate. I would recommend having a vote to get each unit on separate meter before your OWNER vs. Rental becomes higher. OR, your HOA needs to take steps to reduce rental percentage. Keep in mind that those who rent units and are on the BOD do no want money spent on issues which cannot be seen but are very important. They are only concerned with visual issues which their renters can physically see.

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By JohnD56 on 05/01/2017 5:06 AM

The only thing stated in the documents is that the water is part of the hoa dues, other than that it does not discuss anything.

If that is truly the language, then it might not be possible to sub-meter the homes without amending the documents. I say this because I also suspect that the documents say that the costs of the Association are to be split equally. Hence, without changing the governing documents, you can't subdivide those costs.

Keep in mind that I agree that sub-metering is an option.
I also think that a special assessment to have individual meters and direct billing from the county/city is an option (and in my opinion, the best option).

JohnD56 (North Carolina)
Posts: 9

Posted:

I agree that the best would be that the city take over metering - the problem is we are a private road and from what I have been told for the city to take over the water metering they will ask that the entire water system be upgraded to a larger line. This I don't understand because based on the plumber who works on the system for the community we have a 3/4" line to the units and do not have any water pressure issues. This is why I brought up sub-metering to them. I really just think the bod doesn't want to be bothered dealing with the issue and just says what they think will make it go away. I just find that wrong and the problem here, which many communities deal with is that there are just not enough people willing to give the time to serve on a bod that really care and want to make things better. I know when I was VP, we worked to try and get people that could work on the issues we had present, not bodies but after the President and I left the bod it appears with the choices for a number of years now may have been for bodies on the bod rather than people who wanted to work at it. It is probably a mute issue but really wanted to hear some opinions and am grateful to all that have responded.

JohnD56 (North Carolina)
Posts: 9

Posted:

Rentals increased drastically with foreclosures and the slump in the market with owners not being able to make up money. Many of the foreclosures went to investors and became rentals. The president talked about getting something done so no more than 2 units could be owned by the same person but that is not really the issue as there are only a few units where 2 are owned by 1 party. Restricting number of rentals is an issue because we are not condos, we are single family attached and not real sure based on people I have spoken to that legally you can restrict the owner from renting if they want to move and force them to sell instead.

JanetB2 (Colorado)
Posts: 4,219

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By JohnD56 on 05/03/2017 6:48 AM
I agree that the best would be that the city take over metering - the problem is we are a private road and from what I have been told for the city to take over the water metering they will ask that the entire water system be upgraded to a larger line. This I don't understand because based on the plumber who works on the system for the community we have a 3/4" line to the units and do not have any water pressure issues. This is why I brought up sub-metering to them. I really just think the bod doesn't want to be bothered dealing with the issue and just says what they think will make it go away. I just find that wrong and the problem here, which many communities deal with is that there are just not enough people willing to give the time to serve on a bod that really care and want to make things better. I know when I was VP, we worked to try and get people that could work on the issues we had present, not bodies but after the President and I left the bod it appears with the choices for a number of years now may have been for bodies on the bod rather than people who wanted to work at it. It is probably a mute issue but really wanted to hear some opinions and am grateful to all that have responded.

That is potentially because City is looking to the future and other surrounding land tapping into and expanding the water line. Essentially future expansion may require a larger line. Check on whether they are talking larger line just to Subdivision or to Units.

I agree with Tim in that currently your documents only allow dividing equally. Potentially your choices appear to be continuing with the lack of water control and dividing equally, educate owners regarding the average costs of other surrounding neighborhoods vs your neighborhood (this might catch some owner's attention) to help reduce costs, choose to have individual meters installed and charge units a special assessment (this will depend on governing documents and state laws as to whether BOD decision or vote of members) depending on cost and how much allowed for special assessments, or your idea of sub-metering (which I am not very familiar with).

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