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Of the 19 lots in our strata plan, only 10 lots have their own water meter.
The units block with 6 lots has only one meter as has the commercial block with 3 lots.
Our previous strata manager would divide the 2 meter readings by 6 and 3 resp. , then sent water levy notices to the lot owners and levies so collected would be offset against the water rates accounts for the 2 meters.
Our current manager has advised us that this practice is illegal and won’t comply with the EC request to continue past practice.
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?
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@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.
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
A water service charge is a component of each account that I received from Sydney Water (about $40.00). It is not clear to me whether this is a charge per unit or per water meter. If it is per water meter and the water supply to a number of units runs from this one meter, then it would appear that there is an overall saving to each unit, with one only service charge divided between them all as opposed to a service charge per unit. The water usage charge is then presumably divided between all units connected to this one meter – presumably on a unit entitlement basis.
While the costs might not be perfectly fairly divided as there is no way of knowing exactly how much water each unit uses, nonetheless the savings are likely worthwhile as each $40 saved equates to a significant amount of water.
An area where savings may be substantially more significant is that of gas meters and gas usage – particularly if the gas is only used for cooking. I regularly receive gas bills of less than $50 and the charge just to have the gas meter sitting there is in excess of $40. I am aware of at least one block of units where the Owners Corporation and all units are attached to the one meter. As gas bills are quarterly there is a saving in excess of $160 per annum for each gas meter that is not there. Of course if anyone has gas heating the potential for abuse of such a communal gas supply system exists. But in the block of units that I’m aware of the owners come out well ahead in terms of gas supply costs.
Bear in mind I’m in QLD but this is how it works in our strata:
10 lots with one common meter.
Each owner is billed direct by the water company 1/10 of total usage plus full service charge to each owner.
Each lot also has individual water meters and many years ago we asked to be billed based on our meters. Water inspector came round and informed us the water meters were not up to spec and need replacing with ones that were. Strata lost interest and nothing happened.
Hi Kiwipaul
In NSW a bit different in that the Owners Corporation receives one bill for the total water consumption, and individual owners are hit separately with a bill for a supply or connection charge. As Jimmy pointed out, the Owners Corporation expense is included in the levy notices by apportionment according to Unit entitlement. In NSW each unit owner could only be charged the same amount per unit if each unit had the same entitlement.
There are pluses and minuses to having individual meters to each unit. There is the cost of metering, and the need to read the meters on an ongoing basis, and the extra accounting involved. Then there is the question of unmetered supply to common areas, in our case with fairly extensive common grounds we would find residents less willing to water lawn areas if they were to be also footing the bill through their meters. And then if owners dispute their bills how to test and identify faulty meters.
There’s less opportunity for reading errors and less cost for Water Supply Authorities to read and maintain one meter that records the supply to all Lots and the Common Property in a Strata Plan and to invoice the Owners Corporation for the total, than it is for them to read and maintain the individual meters fitted to each of those Lots, to invoice the Owners for their respective components of the total consumption, and to invoice the Owners Corporation for the difference.
That’s why, even when individual meters are fitted, there’s still little incentive amongst many Water Authorities to read them, and why it’s still illegal for anyone other than a Designated Water Supply Authority to charge for water obtained from a public supply; that includes Owners Corporations, but who’s checking?
Well I am!
So true Whale. If the meters are actually read.
I recently did a test. Read the meter every few days, recorded and then compared with our bills, over 2 years. Mind u my property is 24 residential and 4 commercial.
I then contacted Sydney Water w my calculations and received a $3000 refund for our building.
Syd water were not reading the meter at all. They were averaging our bill.
Probably still are!
Cheers CBF
In our building, electricity is individually metered for each lot, so is the gas. So it should not be any more onerous for Sydney Water to come out and read individual meters if they are installed. The added cost to read a meter would only be a very small percentage of the total cost we get slugged. Like electricity, there would be a separate meter to record common property usage, which the OC pays but includes in levy estimates.
I think individual water meters are now required on new developments, but retro-fiiting them into existing buildings would be extremely difficult and expensive.
First of all the utilities should be divided by unit entitlements which are dealt with in levies. I think. But..
Your situation Jef is clearly different. I would call Syd Water but bet you have already done that?
Why the energy suppliers go to the trouble of reading any meters at all by a representative when clearly the technology is here to read meters wirelessly Is beyond me. Stagger out the new metering, cost could be limited.
Our gas meters in my lot are read automatically. Why aren’t all units now metered separately by all utility companies? I personally would approve. And in fact the cost would lie with these providers which is probably why we are still living in the stone age.
I can find my mobile fone when it is lost by simply clicking on an app! Go figure!
Cheers CBF
Jef, Boronia et al – in defence of the Sydney Water Corporation and other Water Utilities, they’re both infrastructure operators / maintainers and water product retailers, and the Act that governs their operation doesn’t permit them to invoice ‘users’ of their water product because there are still operations and maintenance (service availability) based components of their charging regime that remain the responsibility of the property owner.
In this circumstance, Water Utilities could read the individual meters fitted to lots in new strata developments, but unlike Gas and Electricity Retailers, they have no way of knowing which lots are from time-to-time owner-occupied and which are tenanted, and therefore have no ability to apportion their invoices so that owners receive only the service availability charges (for water, sewerage, and stormwater) and tenants receive only their water consumption charge.
In circumstances where water meters are installed to lots retrospectively, an additional complication arises as those are recording water usage that’s already been recorded on the main meter to the property, and that has the propensity for the duplication of invoices between the owners/occupants of those lots and the owners corporstion for the common property.
Anything’s possible though including the remote recording mentioned by CBF in the case of gas usage, and even having combined meter reading contracts based upon the numbers of meters accurately read, so that one person visits the sites to read ALL meters installed there irrespective of what perochial retailers own them.
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