New Billing Rules for Apartment Owners

In the past, owners gave renters a full-service price, one that included all utilities. Now, however, on a more frequent basis, tenants are receiving a separate bill for their utilities, in many cases from third-party companies.

The practice has caused a growing number of tenant complaints about these supplemental bills coming without prior notice and with unreasonable or unjustified administrative fees and excessive late fees and penalties. As a result, the City of Seattle has regulated how such billing is to occur. Some of the new rules are as follows:

--Such billing may be adopted only upon 90 days advance written notice to a tenant as part of a new or renewed rental agreement, and the notice must include a detailed written disclosure of the methodology used by the billing agent to allocate the charges to each tenant. Notice of such billing practices and methodology must also be placed in a conspicuous public space inside the apartment building and include copies of the three most current utility bills for master metered or other unmetered utility services. In lieu of posting, notice must be hand delivered to each tenant.

--The total of all charges for any utility service included in the bills sent to all units cumulatively shall not exceed the amount of the bill sent by the utility itself for the building as a whole, less any late charges, interest or other penalties owed by the landlord, with the exception of: (a) a service charge of no more than $2 per utility per month, not to exceed a cumulative service charge of $5 per month for all the utilities included in any bill; (b) late payment charges of no more than $5 per month plus interest at a rate not to exceed 1% per month; (c ) insufficient funds check charges of not more than $31 per dishonored check.

--Third party billing agents must be properly registered and licensed to do business in the State of Washington and City of Seattle, and must not be given any more information than the name of the tenant and the address of the tenant.

The new law also outlines a dispute-resolution process. More information can be found at www.seattle.gov/html/business/thirdpartybilling