Polling all Duplex Owners

[RandyDalton]

Hi All,

For anyone with a duplex or triplex and only one meter I am wondering who out there is using shared utilities agreements to cover the cost of utilities.

If you have a shared utilities agreement and you are making the tenants pay 100% of the total costs what is your experience with the tenants complaining about each others usage and threatening to not pay?

I thought I heard of this idea at one of the REIN events where both tenants and you each pay 1/3 of the costs? (Hoping REIN will respond to this part) The idea was to eliminate the complaints found above. Is anyone using this strategy and do you find this eliminates tenant complaints and makes for less conflict in the home?

All your comments are appreciated!

Regards...Randy Dalton

 

[EdRenkema]

QUOTE (RandyDalton @ Nov 22 2010, 07:20 AM) Hi All,

For anyone with a duplex or triplex and only one meter I am wondering who out there is using shared utilities agreements to cover the cost of utilities.

If you have a shared utilities agreement and you are making the tenants pay 100% of the total costs what is your experience with the tenants complaining about each others usage and threatening to not pay?

I thought I heard of this idea at one of the REIN events where both tenants and you each pay 1/3 of the costs? (Hoping REIN will respond to this part) The idea was to eliminate the complaints found above. Is anyone using this strategy and do you find this eliminates tenant complaints and makes for less conflict in the home?

All your comments are appreciated!

Regards...Randy Dalton

Randy I`ve got a duplex with inherited tenants who have utilities included in rent + on one meter. I`m trying to determine how to convert this to rent + utilities. My thoughts would be to allocate 60% costs to main floor and 40% to 2nd floor.
The only problem that may arise is if they do not pay their utilities... (I`m thinking of the tenant profile here)

 

[markl]

Hi Randy,

I have a couple of shared duplexes and they are either 50/50 or 60/40 and I base this on the percentage of sq footage of the apartments. Typically I get the tenant to have the bill in their name and get the other tenant to pay them directly. I have been pretty successful with this. I always let the person know who`s name it is in that I will cover if the other tenant does not pay their share.

I do not like to pay the utilities on a 2 unit building.

Regards,

 

[housingrental]

Separate meters or utilities included or split only when the different units know each other prior to signing on and I recommend they get a joint account and prepay to it and have it drawn down from

Charging plus utilities with only one meter in a multi-unit building leads to:

Units that are harder to rent
Units that rent for less
Tenants that do not pay their utility bills
Risk of utilities being shut off to the other unit that has paid appropriately
Litigation

If you want to have tenants pay utilities then ensure you purchase a property that has, or can economically be converted to, separate meters.

 

[fumbrunner]

I have two duplexes and a triplex. All had separate hydro meters, all had forced air (gas) feeding all suites. All have now been set up with forced air feeding the main floor suite only, with other suites running electric baseboard. Tenants pay heat and hydro.

Separate hydro meters is one of the criterias that needs to be in place for me to consider the purchase.