"Reasonable" notice for passthrough of utlities

Looks like a water passthrough would fall under this state’s “rule change” statute. There is no timing specified, whereas rent hike must have 60 day notice like most states. Do most of you give 60 days notice for passthrough as well, or do you just do overnight? Or perhaps something in the middle…

Thanks

I imagine 60 days would be a default if you were sub metering. 1-2 weeks to order your meters, 2hrs installation per home (100 hrs for a 50 space park), and a month to get a full read. If it is RUBS, then I might just do it sometime between immediately and 30 days.

Thanks. The park is actually already submetered but each lot gets about 5k gallons a month included.

I would probably give them 30 days personally. At the end of the day, you’ll hear the same amount of griping with any path you choose.

Hello,
Depending on what state your MHP is located, you should contact the appropriate utility regulatory agency as to their requirements. While almost every state allows sub-metering, each has different utility regulations concerning sub-metering.

Regardless, When transitioning a MHP to sub-metered tenant paying their own utilities: A new mind set has to be implemented; Including communications with the residents why their is a urgent need to curb the community’s ever increasing use and cost of water and sewer service; and gain the residents support to the community’s new proactive water conservation measures. We offer resident education as part of the transition process.
Many third party billing services, including our company Southern Water Management, allows a manager complete access to a utility billing cloud service, in which the manger simply inputs the residents’ meter reads, bills are generated, along with consumption comparisons, leak information;The manager can include the water/sewer bill with the rental invoice. Accounting and regulatory compliance is handle by the third party billing service. Depending on the number of accounts the cost is @ $5 per account billed to the resident.

Water and sewer consumption is 25 to 35% less when residents are responsible for their own use. In some cases, for going a rental increase in lieu of residents paying for their own water sewer service is more palatable than increasing rent annually just to stay even with the escalating utility costs. For example, say water/sewer runs $75 per home when the landlord pays, when the resident pays, the cost is $50, drop the rent by $50 (or for go an increase) the landlord is still better off by $25.

Obviously, rental increases or residents paying for their own water/sewer is an uncomfortable situation, but is necessary to keep a MHP a viable business.

We’re here to answer your sub-metering questions…
Dan Helton
Dan@SouthernWaterManagement.com

Thanks everyone. I think it’s safe to say there’s no definitive answer in link below but given a rent increase with a 60 day notice does not constitute a “substantial” rule change I think I’d be ok with 30 for passing through utilities. And I’m only doing water initially, not sewer.

http://www.ag.state.mn.us/consumer/Handbooks/HomeParks/HomeParks03_3.asp#Park%20Rules