Water Billing

We are a self managed HOA and recently we had a major ongoing water leak that I had to pinpoint. It ended up being a flapper in a bedroom that was vacant for multiple months. The prior management company, before I was an owner, installed submeters but could not get all the submeters to record and the project was just abandoned. We are currently charging the owners the same fixed rate per month for water. Needless to say the budget for Water and Sewer this year is blown away. I have since resurrected the submeter project and did a little programming and I can now read the usage of water for each unit remotely. I could come up with a way to bill the units individually. I would probably need to get the owners and approve an amendment to the CCR. Does anyone have an opinion regarding staying the course and keep changing a fixed rate (I am now able to determine leaks and can get alerted) or trying to bill each using individually. I am leaning towards staying the course since it provides a bit of insurance for the owners and having a constant payment does help with collections.

There are no specific mentions of Water in our CCR or Bylaws but would be considered a common expense. Each unit shares in 1/16 of common expenses. One caveat I left out, there is one external water spigot on each building. Any water usage at the spigot would be recorded on two of the units submeter.

COMMON EXPENSES AND ASSESSMENTS. The unit owners are bound to
contribute, according to their allocated interest in the common areas and facilities as set forth
herein, toward the common expenses of the Association. No unit owner may exempt himself
from contributing toward such expenses by waiver of the use or enjoyment of the common areas
and facilities or by abandonment of the unit belonging to him. The common profits of the
property, if any, shall be distributed among the unit owners according to the same percentage
undivided interest. Each unit owner shall be subject to an assessment from the Board of
Directors for his share of the common expenses. The manner of computing and collecting this
assessment is set forth in the Bylaws.

I agree about reading your CC&Rs. Read them carefully since applicable language can be anywhere, not just in the section about assessments. We have a statement in our bylaws (!) addressing the inclusion of utilities in our monthly assessments - stating essentially that doing so will provide an unfair advantage to some owners and an unfair disadvantage to others.

I think you have to stay the course unless: 1) your CC&Rs and bylaws allow charging by usage; and 2) you have a method to accurately determine actual usage and can produce statements for the owners.

DouglasK1, Thank you so much for the recent thread. I was searching for something similar and this is just perfect. I wanted to be prepared for the questions I would eventually receive. I will recommend staying the course.

CathyA3,

I totally agree with you on the outdoor spigot. Submetering was a decision that the prior management company and prior board made. I am making the best out of the situation and it only cost 20 bucks to read the device. Even though I cannot bill separately, I can fairly easily identify leaks quickly and that is huge.