Landowners will soon be responsible for the payment of their renter’s water and sewer utility bill in the County of Barrhead after a motion was passed during a regular County Council meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 16.
The changes to the previous water and sewer utility bylaw will come into effect as of Jan. 1, 2015, and were recommended by the county ‘s policy committee.
“From the policy committee there was recommendations to make changes to our water and sewer utility bylaw, to address a difficulty we have been having for some time,” Chief Administrative Officer Mark Oberg said. “So the recommendation was to set thing up so with future accounts… they would be in the name of landowners.”
Oberg said that the county has been left with some outstanding bills, after families have moved from their rental homes without paying the outstanding amount.
After Jan. 1, the accounts will be changed to the name of the landowner, in order for the county to avoid the issue of nonpayment.
Oberg said the accounts will be made under the landowners name, and the bills sent to the landowner.
“The key is, the landowner is the person who has applied for, and has a utility account, then if they don’t pay their bills you can put those bills on their taxes,” he said.
The landowner will be responsible for collecting payment for the bills from the renters.
According to Oberg, changes to bylaws are often made that same day.
“Normally when you have a bylaw that is just changed, then all of those changes are put into effect that day. But we don’t want that, we want it to start up on the first,” Oberg said.
Those currently renting property or homes in the County of Barrhead won’t see any changes to how they do things in the New Year.
“Everything will just continue as is, whether it is a tenant or an owner, anybody else will continue as is until there is non payment or something,” County Administrative Assistant Linda West said.
The changes will affect anyone who has a current account for the utility that has not been paid, and remains after the payment due date, anyone who requests the termination of their utility service, and anyone whose contract is lawfully terminated in any other way.
To reinstate or apply for the service, the landowner must fill out an application in writing and present it to the municipality. The application costs $30, a fee that is non-refundable.
A request to increase the rates for the water and sewer services in the county as of January 1, 2015 was presented by County Utilities Officer, Barry Billey, and will go hand-in-hand with the new bylaw coming into effect.
The services will see a 12 per cent increase overall.
The metered water services will see an increase from $37.78 per month minimum charge, to $42.31 per month minimum charge for those living in the county.
The unmetered water services for individual residential dwelling units is increasing to $69.58 per unit, seeing an increase of over $7.
Other users living in the county of Barrhead will be charged $108.72 per unit compared to $97.07.
County operated water stations will now cost $1 for each 0.145 cubic metres, comparing to the past cost of $1 per .162 cubic metres.
