Water-billing issues impacting landlords

Issues are cropping up between property managers and the City of Libby with regard to the city’s water billing practices. Property managers are claiming the city is being too lax with renters who don’t pay their water bills and is shifting the burden onto the shoulders of the property owners.

The problem stems from the city’s policy of not transferring water accounts to new renters while a past due balance remains on the property. When tenants vacant a rental without paying the final water balance, the property owners become responsible for the bill and service for a new tenant will not be started until the balance is paid in full.

The city’s rules and regulations for the water system clearly spell out the policy.

“Any change in the identity of the contracting customer, property owner and/or legal agent at a premises served by city water will require a new application for service, and no new application will be approved unless all unpaid water charges, if any, have been paid in full. In all cases the property owner shall be liable for all charges for water service to their property,” the document states.

Zach McNew, the owner of Town and County Property Management, said the city used to work with property managers and owners to cover past due bills from old tenants, but no longer does so.

“Up until the last couple of months they’ve worked with us,” he said. “That has stopped. They’re making owners pay all past due balances before connecting water for new tenants.”

City administrator Jim Hammons defended the city’s policy.

“It’s not the city’s business to manage those rental properties,” he said. “Why should the city spend resources doing their administration? When people don’t pay their bills it impacts everyone else in the city’s rates. That’s not fair.”

Cody Sentell, who manages 49 properties in Lincoln County, said his concern isn’t so much the responsibility of the water bill, but how the city deals with delinquent payers.

“If they’re going to hold the land owners accountable, then they need to do their jobs in that office and shut off the water when it isn’t paid in the right time frame,” he said.

The city’s policy document states that water service can be shut off when a tenant is twenty or more days past due.

Jackie Powell, the city’s utility billing clerk, explained the rules.

“Water bills are due on the sixth of each month, they’re past due on the 26th. People have seven days from then to pay the bills or risk getting shut off. We generate pink slips and deliver them with a date of when the water will be shut off,” she said.

Sentell and McNew both said the city doesn’t follow that policy and have let tenants run up significant past due water bills without being shut off.

“There was a $486 water bill and the tenant just up and left. Another was in excess of $360, and we got stuck with both of those bills. Why weren’t those people shut off before then?” Sentell asked.

Sentell said the city charges a deposit of $150 for new tenants, and should not let people get further behind than the deposit can cover. It is up to the city to make sure that doesn’t happen, he said.

“The property managers can’t legally go in and shut the water off,” he said. “When they let people get that far behind it hurts my owners.”

Powell said the past due bills should not come as a surprise to property owners, because the city sends those bills to the tenants and the owners.

Both Sentell and McNew said they sometimes get the bills for water, but its not consistent, nor is it always accurate.

“We sometimes get random bills for properties we don’t even manage,” McNew said.

Jim Hayes owns five rental properties as well as two commercial properties under a corporate umbrella in the city. He said he’s experienced a great deal of confusion with the water billing.

“They kept sending the bill to Jim and Adda Hayes, not Normont Properties, who actually owns the property,” he said.

Hayes also said that he occasionally receives some of the bills on the properties, but certainly not all of them and not every month. Hayes said he has yet to experience an issue with a tenant skipping out on the bill, leaving him holding the bag.

When asked about the billing issues and policies, Hammons was uncertain of how it is all handled.

“I don’t really deal with the billing side of things,” he said. “I handle more of the public works side.”

McNew said the city needs to provide much better oversight and management of the water billing system.

“There’s just no accountability with the water department,” he said.