Billing back private water and sewer in Texas?

Hello. I’m looking looking at a park that operates on well and septic in Texas. Each home is currently submetered, but the park does not bill back for water or sewer. Can anyone provide guidance on whether or not the state of Texas allows you to bill back water and sewer for communities on private utilities?

If there is anyone already doing this in Texas, can you please provide an example on how this is done and how you calculate the monthly bill?

Thank you!

Sub-metered private utilities

We have sub-metered many MHPs in Texas, registering with PUC is required (and straight forward),
Her’s the link for the Texas PUC’s requirements: Submetered Utility Service for Property Owners (texas.gov)

Proper accounting is imperative, therefor an experienced third party billing service should be considered.

Problems arrise when the utilities are owned by the MHP owner. Almost through out the US, only the cost of the utility service can be passed through, explicity no infrastructure costs. In other states we have passed through the cost related providing the utility service ( for example electric , testing, treatement). However, Texas’s PUC refers only to passing through charges from the " local utility supplier".

Most likely if you own the utility, the owner has to register as a Utility, which entails a lot of reporting and documentation, same as a muncipal utility, which maybe cost prohibitive.

Bottom line: Check if any PUC filings regarding your MHP: There maybe an order dissallowing charging the residents; Or hopefully you may find, a previous PUC filing allowing billing the residents for utilities.

“We’re here to answer your sub-metering questions”

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Thank you Dan. I appreciate the guidance!

I looked into it and you can do it in Texas yes.

You have to baseline your water and sewer costs over 6 to 12 months (I forget which), including labor, materials, contracted costs and spread that over time to propose a monthly rate to the PUC that will offset your costs to zero as a utility. You then rebaseline annually to adjust for increases, etc. There are some registration and processing components that probably are arduous.

Those are the broad strokes but it’s doable. I investigated it only to offset the costs of my lift station but after 12 months that alone wasn’t worth the hassle to go through with it while submetering city services…

Good luck!

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