(l) A landlord may not shut off or refuse water service to a tenant on the basis that the tenant has not paid a separately assessed submetered water usage charge. 
Scott: Yeah. He was talking about 60 gallons per day. which can help a landlord are welcomed. Were doing a good job here. I guess that was my idea. If you are looking at three people in the house, $60 a month, $180 a quarter; thats what youre talking about. (Stainless steel meters are available for less but are not widely recommended by plumbers because they dont typically last as long.). Under qualified tenancies on there, its like the third section down, it says, Upon the commencement of a new tenancy in such dwelling unit and only if one the dwelling unit is being occupied for the first time. Thats really your safest bet is when you have somebody moving into the building for the first time. If so, you must include your valid email address here. I didnt have to go through any of that stuff. Starting now, youre new tenant. Thanks, Sewer cost is usually dependent upon the amount of water used so it should be easy to figure out.Keep in mind in order to separate out the water you will probably need to run new cold water lines, The water lines to each apartment are easily accessible from the basement parking area. You can also read it on the day a new tenant moves in to generate the last bill upon move out. Thats the bulleting that we wanted to share and we will try to get a licensed plumber to talk about this at length in the future. It tells you when you can submeter, when you cant submeter, and all that stuff. I guess they already thought of that, so you cant do that. Depending on your area I would do the split meter, and next time the lease renewal is up, I would make them buy their own water. Peter: Say somebody is already there and they think its a great idea but according to the law, it has to be a new person. Theres a variability, obviously but $60 a month. After the city meter is your main line and the trick is it depends on how your plumbing is. Does this sound right? Jim: I bought a whole bunch of them from surplus from a water utility in New Jersey.
Rich: Yeah. Otherwise you also have to get a separate meter for the yard too. Why would we have to run new lines? Thats the basic idea there. Scott: I have this on some slides. Rich: Can you actually just buzz through it real quick. Thats a lot of laundry. Rich: So there are a lot of ways to save money on your water bill. Once tenants know they will potentially have to pay for the water, they become more cautious not to waste it, said Harry Paul-Emile, a landlord in Framingham who installed water submeters for his rentals about 10 years ago when he noticed his water bill continually increasing without knowing why. Thats why the law is the way it is because you would be charging them for the water and youre charging them for the rent, so what youve done is youve illegally increased. Now he switched over from a well to city water when Wal-Mart went in there. I mean it depends on who you are. That was going to be my next question. How many people have done it as part of major renovation and had the walls opened anyway? Yeah, $8,000. Jim has a lot to contribute to this, so Im going to pass this along to him for a minute. Finally, you must have approval from the local Board of Health for the install. Grumble grumble). I mean something has got to be wrong. So well just go through the table of contents who pays for the water, when can a tenant be billed, when cant they, the public housing tenants have to pay for water, can landlords shut off the water. You have to have the first floor, second floor, third floor and the common area. There is no shortage of anecdotes among landlords about surprise multi-thousand dollar water bills and sudden exorbitant increases in usage. Seems like it would save you a whole lot of headaches and add to resale a bit. Scott: Surcharges include, how does it work, blah, blah, blah. Each time I re-rented a unit, I made the tenant pay me for their water and sewer costs. George, you said you could stick around, too.
There are a bunch of them, here is a random one I found: I work for a water utility.
Rich: In addition to that, you have the handout with the summary of the --, Rich: Legal requirements for this? c. 186, 22) is a relatively stringent set of regulations. It cant be without cause. Is that 2k a write off? Better Policy. The good news for landlords who would like to submeter but dont have the time or inclination for setting it up is that there are numerous outsourcing options in todays marketcontractors that specialize in submetering and can take care of every aspect of the job, from installation to reading and billing. You have to have submeters that are certified for use in Massachusetts. I may look into a separate water meter when the mother/son changes but until then it's 50/50. Rich: [unintelligible 0:10:28]. We could not find any reason why it was like that. Utility submetering has been around since the 1920s but was not widespread until the energy crisis in the mid-1970s, which prompted an increase in submetering for gas and electric usage. A variety of water submeters are available, including wireless devices that can deliver data online. George: Well, Im always against putting steel cocks on the outside of the house for tenants because you drive by your property -- and I have one property. What happened was the town made him do that. Add in the cost of conservation measures such as buying and installing low-flow water fixtures in each rental, required by law since 1994. Well, you know its probably a good idea to try to pick people who are going to pay stuff anyway. Male Audience 2: Is that in the last slide? Damn 350 is a lot for water dang. By the time you spend up to $12,000 to submeter a triple-decker, with a typical water bill running about $350 per quarter, your payback for all submetering costs could take more than eight years. All right, so Scott, this is something that youve done and youve implemented. Its tightly regulated, and once you have done those things, you have to have a licensed plumber file some paperwork with the city that says, Not only is the meter to-code, but all the devices in the unit are water conserving.. As our landlord panel, can you guys hang around for a couple of minute afterwards because I know there are people who have questions for you? Finally, the tight Massachusetts state law only applies to landlords who want to charge their tenants directly for their water usage. How many people have heard about this before? I know we still have questions about this. Water is submetered for the premises under the renters exclusive control; Water conservation devices are on all showers, faucets, and toilets; Water submetering has been agreed to in writing; You have filed with the local municipality, under pains and penalties of perjury, that youre in compliance, and this has been attested to by a licensed plumber; You provide a copy of the submetering filing to the occupants, AND. Im going to come up front. They have to be installed by a licensed plumber. Rich: Which are summarized on the sheet. And by doing so, you might just avoid a nightmare scenario down the road. You could say that, Okay, look this is what Massachusetts is targeting per usage. Without submeters monitoring each of your renters water usage, you have no idea which tenant is running up the bill, or even if its a collective problem among more than a single renter. I have two buildings in Worcester I bought that had quite a bit of deferred maintenance, and I decided I wanted to do kitchen and bath renovations. Thats actually a pretty useful metric to use. But yeah, Id like to take questions during the --. Rich: Yeah, you might have a plumbing leak somewhere. Monthly updates, smart and relevant articles, and free premium content. But no matter what data reporting system you use, youll spend time recording meter readings, calculating costs and writing and delivering invoices to tenants. What we did is we put recirc lines to the farthest apartments, and what happens is when that person turns up hot water on, they got instant hot water. It will eventually pay for itself, I'm waiting until I move out of the one side so then water bills can go directly to each tenant. It's a mother in one side and a son in the other. I see some hands going up. I've heard something about a kind of counter that we might install on each line ourselves. These are installed at the shutoffs with compression fittings and/or threads. Tenants are more likely to self-monitor and reduce water usage when they know their landlord will see it, and certainly if they are paying for it themselves. Each meter is about $100, and a plumber could install one in about 45 minutes. If you see it go up high, you know you got a problem right away. My tenants average 80 or so for a 1600 sqft sfh. I have not seen any craziness in terms of water usage since. My other duplex I live in I make my tenant pay me directly a set amount each month and pick up the rest. Male Audience 1: $180 a quarter per unit. Assuming its not set up that way, then what? Now, if youre not opening the walls, you should know about these point of view submeters, which I think are relatively new. I heard about all the horror stories of huge water bills and multifamily houses with one meter and no ability to know where the water usage is. Does everybody have --, Scott: You guys should get this. (o) Landlord must rebate tenant if there is a plumbing leak. Scott: Hi, everybody. Also, one side of the duplex uses far more water than the other (as evidenced by the condition of the yards and the existence of raised garden beds). Its $40 each. Rich: So were going to get into a little bit about the logistics of how this is done in different-sized buildings. If you call TrueSubmeter.co, youll find out its not an advertisement. Same thing for apartment 2, same thing for apartment 3, and then the outside faucets and any common area water goes through a separate meter. Submetered billing is not straight forward and requires extra transactions with each of your tenants every month. Rich: I hear that rates are going up in a lot of towns. You would have to track the usage on the sub meters and bill accordingly. charging for water cannot be imposed on an existing tenant mid-lease or otherwise, and a tenant may not be forcefully removed from a rental for the purpose of beginning water billing on a new tenant). Read state sanitary codes. Such service, of course, comes at a cost somewhere above the DIY route. Just like with electrical panels, if you have a triple-decker, you have to have four electrical meters, right? You have to have water-conserving devices. Now I am from ohio and water is cheap so i don't worry about it. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts.
All right, thats good news. Tenants are also more likely to report leaks under those circumstancesthus avoiding nightmare scenarios. Theres things in the law and like I said, I dont want to go into too much of that because Im not an expert on it. Anyone recollect what Im looking for? Male Audience 1: I usually see about $60 per month per unit water use. Doug: Here is what we understand. Jim: I think they dont want you to kick out they dont want to have the event of having the meter put in as an event that allows you to kick people out to order to start charging for the water. Press J to jump to the feed. I know there will be initial expenses for this, but we figure it would pay off in the long run. I bought mine off of this place called Submeter Solutions. Landlords may only charge tenants for water used by them and in their units exclusively; no charge may be levied for water usages in common areas shared by more than one tenant. Worcester quarterly bills are confusing, but anyways, Im just trying round numbers here. Wow! Male Audience 1: [unintelligible 0:10:11] property. We have to locate that in the basement because thats where shutoff. Doug: Sixty dollars a month, yes. The largest non-profit for owners and managers of Massachusetts residential real estate. Log in or join today and gain access all presentations and videos. It prints out the PDF file and I email that to my tenants and I include in their next round of payment. Scott: Yes, exactly, and one thing Ive recently come across is that if you do feel that the tenants arent going to be happy, theyre not going to accept this, an option is to say, Okay, forget about the -- Lets say you come into a situation with an empty building and you have submeters. It gives you that early clue to water abuse.
Scott: as long as youre not charging the tenants. Cheaper nicer safer happier brighter more private, where people want it. The transparency, for them and their tenants, of knowing exactly how much water is being used per unit, promotes a better, more trustful tenant-landlord relationship while helping to reduce water waste. Can sewage charges be legally added too? I dont need to [unintelligible 0:11:55]. Its an Excel sheet that calculates the -- I have to check you have to check to make sure that you know what their water rates for Worcester because they just raised them recently, and water and sewer rates. Scott: It depends on the meter that you buy. You cannot shut off the water utility if they do not pay, so really you cannot enforce this in any other way other than taking them to court if that came up. Male Audience 5: And that actually its the first step I would think. Its worth reading. Our general consensus, I think is if you do have the walls opened, you should do it if no other reason that you get a slow payback for which you avoid that disastrous scenario where someone is running a laundry or theyre running the water bills up. There is a range of reading options, from manual on-site readings to smart meters with wireless capability that can send online readings, provide analytics and optimization. Theres the managing your property part of this. I think well be ahead. The previous tenant, if the law actually cares about how that unit came to be available for rent, so you cant just toss out your current people who you cant charge for the water and replace them with new people that you can charge for the water. I do charge a flat fee for water and add it to rent. Accessing the plumbing in order to run dedicated water lines to each unit could require costly renovation to open up walls, followed by plaster or drywall replacement and repainting. Upon the commencement of a new tenancy in such dwelling unit and only if: the dwelling unit is being occupied for the first time; or, the previous tenant was NOT evicted without cause. I just wanted to see how much I was using.
When a tenant didn't pay for their water, I could not shut off the water, but instead had to evict. I think it needs a cellphone line. It has become standard practice to install submeters for many newly constructed multi-unit buildings. Low-flow showerhead max 2.5 gpm (gallons per minute), Low-flow faucets max 2.2 gpm (gallons per minute), Ultra-low-flush toilet max 1.6 gpf (gallons per flush), Must be in compliance with the standards of accuracy and testing referenced in subsection (b), Submetered units must be in compliance with the board of health. Male Audience 2: I don't know how long this takes up. The typical water submetering thing that people talk about, I think this is a representative to do a three-decker, something I saw recently: $14,000 to open the walls, redo all the plumbing all the way up. I disconnect and I put locks on them. We accept posts from tenants looking for a landlord's perspective but please remember that the answer you get may sway in that direction. But even aside from extreme scenarios, water submetering may make sense for landlords just seeking to improve efficiency, reduce water usage, and possibly pass on water charges directly to their tenants instead of building an estimated charge into the rental amount (or simply paying for tenants water).
It also would help if you can put up the submeters, you can tell which floor to focus on if there is somebody running a Laundromat at our apartment. Rich: Like over here, there is a common area submeter on Scotts slide here. One building I converted to a condo's and had separate meters read and billed by the city utility. Im paying for that water. Jim: [unintelligible 0:08:00] The main idea here is like everything with Massachusetts law, its heavily in favor of the tenant, so they have dotted every I, crossed every T to make sure that the landlord is not taking advantage of the tenant.
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