› Flat Chat Strata Forum › Levies and Unit Entitlements › Who pays for water usage by lot owners who share a common meter? › Current Page
@Jef said:
There must be lots of strata plans where there are no separate water meters for each lot. How do other Owner Corporations recoup the cost of water usage by lot owners in such circumstances?
There is only one legal way to do this and that is charging residents according to their Unit Entitlements.
However, that works against a single resident living in a large apartment who pays more than two couples living in a small apartment.
The best answer is to retrofit water meters to individual apartments – and it can be done. Basically the owners corp can pass a bylaw saying that anyone who retrofits a meter to their own apartment will be charged according to their usage and everyone else will be charged for the remainder according to their UEs.
Water savers will rush at the opportunity and the excessive water users will have to pay more anyway as the unmetered access grows and the number of units sharing the cost diminishes.
By the way, I know one building where they persuaded somewhat reluctant commercial unit owners to have a meter installed only to discover that they were not, in fact, using much more water than anyone else.
So, to answer you question, UEs are the basis of the correct calculation and water meters are the way to go for the future.