Landlord information
Protecting yourself against unpaid tenant water bills
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- Before you rent
- When renting
- When selling your rental property
- When purchasing property
- Billing and collection procedures
- Situations where we may turn off water to a rental property
- Situations where we don’t turn off water to a rental property
- When a tenant vacates your rental unit with an outstanding amount owing
- Contact us to register as a landlord. We need:
- your name,
- your mailing address, and
- a list of the properties you rent.
- Contact us to find out about the water meters and your private water service pipe for each of your rental units or buildings. Any time a water pipe serves more than one unit or building, we can only turn the water off due to non-payment if there is a separate shut-off valve for that building at the property line. Outstanding balances are added to the property owner’s tax bill.
- Contact us on the day your tenant signs a rental agreement. This will ensure the account is set up in the appropriate name. If the new tenant is to be the account holder, please make sure that we have all the information we need. If we do not receive information about a new tenant, we will automatically put the bill in your name.
- Contact us on the day the tenant moves in to confirm that we have a first meter reading.
- Contact us on the day the tenant moves out to confirm that we have a final reading. We can then issue a final bill for water and sewer service right away. We will send you a letter with the final bill amount if we may add unpaid final bills to your property taxes. You can withhold the security deposit until the bill is paid.
When selling your rental property
Contact us with a meter reading to make sure that we bill you only for the water used at your property until the time of the sale. Do this even if your tenant is responsible for the water bill and plans to rent from the new owner. If we don’t receive a reading until months after the sale, we pro-rate the bill between the former owner and the new owner. If the new owner rents to a tenant that uses lots of water, you may end up with a higher bill than you expected.
When purchasing property
Do not finalize the sale until the vendor provides a meter reading and his or her lawyer pays the final water bill. Your lawyer should make sure the final actual water bill is paid before you finalize the purchase. Remember, we may add unpaid water bills to your property taxes.
Billing and collection procedures
- If we do not receive information about a new tenant, we will automatically put the bill in your name. If you receive a bill for charges that you believe should be billed to a tenant, we will adjust your bill and bill your tenant for up to one bill period (typically one quarter).
- We will send notices to the tenant any time there is an outstanding balance (at 40 days from the billing date and again at 60 days from the billing date).
- We will send you a letter any time your tenant has an outstanding balance that may be added to your property tax (at 40 days from the billing date and again at 60 days from the billing date if payment has still not been made).
Situations where we may turn off water to a rental property
We may turn off the water to accounts with outstanding balances of $100 or more when we have not received payment within 80 days of the billing date, unless the tenant has contacted us to make arrangements to pay off the outstanding balance in regular instalments. Before we can agree to payment arrangements that extend past 70 days from the billing date, we must have your approval as the landlord.
Note: This may not apply to all commercial properties. Phone 986-2455 if you have any questions.
Situations where we don’t turn off water to a rental property
We can’t turn off the water to a rental property in the following circumstances:
- the water bill is in the property owner’s name
- one water meter measures water use to more than one unit
- the shut-off valve controls water to more than one unit
- the shut-off valve is on private property
In these cases, we will add outstanding balances of $100 or more to the property owner’s tax bill when payment has not been received within 105 days of the billing date.
When a tenant vacates your rental unit with an outstanding amount owing
If a tenant vacates your rental unit with an outstanding final bill of $100 or more and we have not received payment within 50 days of the billing date, we:
- Try to recover the money from the tenant. We will send the tenant’s final bill to a forwarding address (if we have the information) or the service address on file (if we do not have a forwarding address).
- Try to turn off the water at the tenant’s new address if we have this information and the water bill is in the tenant’s name at this address.
- Notify you of the tenant’s outstanding balance. We encourage you to try to collect this money from your tenant. You might consider:
- Government of Manitoba Small Claims Court
- Government of Manitoba Residential Tenancies Branch
- Private collection agencies
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This page was last updated on October 21, 2010 |
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