Our primary responsibilities with regard to utilities are below:

1. Ensure tenants are paying for utilities as appropriate, and that this is documented correctly in their lease.
   1. Tenants must place service into their name when possible and pay utility companies directly.
   2. When that is not possible, our company will coordinate another billing method.
2. Transfer utilities into the owner's name & billed to our office ahead of an upcoming vacancy as appropriate, to ensure uninterrupted service while the unit is vacant.
3. Document and track any utility bills IHREPM pays on behalf of the owner, vacant or occupied. Ex. a common area electric or streetlight bill, multi-family water bills - either billed back to the tenant via flat fee or submetered.
4. Ensure heat checks during the Winter on all vacant properties.
5. If your property is vacant and you are a new client with IHREPM, please ensure you us know if you need assistance with transferring any utility, as our main concern is that they are ON.
6. If your property is NOT under an LLC, you may be asked to transfer gas service due to the fact that Columbia Gas does not work well with property managers, they do require the actual owner to call on occasion. Having your birthday on file is a great first step in IHREPM being able to handle it, as this is something they request when you call.

Owners will often turn to us for advice on how to improve or handle water billing at their multifamily property. Here is our guidance, in descending order of preference:

1. Direct city meters. Occasionally you will find a duplex or other property that has a city meter for each unit. You can also call the city and get on a waiting list to add individual meters for each unit, although it is expensive. However it's a great option when possible.
2. Submetering. This is another excellent option. Currently our company uses an third party to handle submetering. The advantages of submetering are that tenants are billed monthly instead of quarterly, tenants pay for their usage directly, and leaks are able to be caught and corrected more quickly and easily.
3. Flat-rate billing. This is where you assign a flat-rate water bill per unit or per occupant. This involves the least work for us, but is a bad solution from the owner's perspective. There is no incentive for residents to report water leaks or conserve water usage. We can monitor the quarterly bills and increase the charge to the tenant. We can also add any overage to their ledger to bring the bill in line with usage.
4. Free water (aka, water included). No charge to residents for water at all. This is not recommended.

If you are paying for a utility bill and wish to turn that burden over to IHREPM, please let us know and we can coordinate that with you. We always want to charge as much of the utilities back to the tenant as possible as well, if you think your tenant’s lease is not offering this for some reason, feel free to reach out to our team for guidance!