City of East Point Wants Someone Else Pay Old Tenant’s Water Bill
We manage a home in East Point, Georgia for an owner in California. After months of vacancy, we finally have an approved tenant who wants to move into the property. This particular tenant is a Housing Choice Voucher recipient (formerly called Section 8). Through the process, the DCA – the governmental agency that oversees the housing choice program required that all the utilities be turned on. So, we contact the various utility companies and try to arrange for service. Not a problem until we get to the water department.
Apparently the former tenant who was residing in the house when the owner hired us to manage it (because of lack of payment from the tenant) never turned on the water and therefore ran up a $350+ water bill. Of course the tenant’s lease, as most leases do, clearly states that the tenants are responsible for all utilities. We have no way of knowing that the tenants didn’t transfer the utilities.
To make matters even more complicated, the house was purchased from a bank after it was foreclosed from the builder, so the owner never established service, the former builder was bankrupt, and therefore, there was no way to be notified that there was illegal usage of water. In fact, the city of East Point didn’t even know about the issue until they went to read the meter to establish the service and found that there was a large amount of water that was used.
The city of East Point did not want to grant water service due to the bill from the previous tenants. We spent 3 days calling to try and reason with them about the urgency of this matter. The inspection is scheduled for Monday and we needed that water on. We didn’t feel it was fair or correct to make someone else pay for the previous tenant’s usage. After all, they stuck our owner for a lot of unpaid rent already. It took several month’s to evict them from the property where they were able to basically live rent free for approximately 5 months.
We provided the water department with all the documentation that stated that the former tenant was responsible. Provide copies of leases, judgments against them and eviction paperwork. We called for 3 days trying to get the issue resovled and were told over and over that the only person who could authorize the turn on was the finance manager who conveniently has been unavailable. It is now 4:00 on Friday and we still have no schedule for the water. We call the Mayor’s office, the Clark Howard Team, and WSB TV to name a few to see if we can get some assistance. Finally at 4:30, we get a call to state that the Finance manager will allow the water to be turned on Monday, but we have to have a representative there. We can’t just have it turned on and then off at the street like every other water company. So I have to pay someone to go to the property and wait for the water company to show up.
I have several issues with this whole ordeal.
#1 – Why should a person be responsible for a bill that another person incurred?
#2 – Why didn’t the City take responsibility for the usage a long time ago? We actually winterized the house back in the fall, so I know there has been no usage since then.
#3 – Why did it take 3 days for a response and it was conveniently after we contacted the Mayor’s office?
#4 – Why can only 1 person make a decision to do the right thing for a customer? We were trying to get water established. We were trying to serve our client. We didn’t get any more management fees for spending 3-4 hours just on this one issue.
#5 – It isn’t like we could go to another vendor – they are a monopoly. I can’t believe that they treat people this way. They are basically bullying people into paying for their mismanagement of the billing. Any other utility company would have realized the usage and turned it off then pressed charges or turn them over to collections.
I am outraged by this whole scenario and hope you are too. How many other people have just decided to pay it because they didn’t have the time or energy to fight this? Get involved in your community and make your voice heard. Let me know of any similar experiences you have heard about or had.
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May 11th, 2009 at 10:57 am
I went through a similar ordeal with the City of East Point Water. They do not return calls and actual lied to me various times. My situation was a leak on the sidewalk in front of my rental property. They were responsible to repair but it took over six months to get some response. We called and showed up several times. They are the most unprofessoinal department I have ever worked with. Due to me experience with the city I will not be investing anymore money in them.
July 1st, 2009 at 5:59 am
I just moved to east point and I recieved an electric bill of 253! Its outrageous because I didnt even have an ac unit for that month and prior to me moving here, someone was stealing power so they cut it off at the pole… They “investigated” and found my meter to be working properly… I think its a HUGE coincidence my little house has this huge bill.
September 9th, 2009 at 9:11 am
Im going through a similar ordeal with the city of East Point. I have a salon in EastPoint which opened up in Jan09.I had to pay 1500.00 down for a deposit because the former tenant don’t pay there bills. East point don’t send me first bill until june which was 843.00 for Jan-May and a week later a bill for month of June which was a 453.00 All was due 1296 at thAt time. I try talking and working out a payment plan. Which we did I was paying 400.00 a week for 3 weeks to pay off the but was not able to pay the whole amount I paid 1228.00 of the bill. But East Point could not tell me why the bill was only 200.00 a month at first and now 400-500 a month. But i paid it. The next bill came out and the chage me a penalty of 50.00.From 68.00 I left unpay but on the bill it clearly say that you will be chager 10% of the remian bal but how you get 50.00 out of 68.00 that is not 10%. But East Point have no anwers for me. And Now this month they chagre me for Trash $168.00 saying they was suppost to be charge me But was not. Who Fault is that you all bill is messed up.Trash servier is 24.00 a month no matter if they pick up your trash or not If they pick it up its 36.00 a month.The bill is from Jan until Now Sep. Im to the end of the rope with East Ponit. What to do