National Water & Power / GREYSTAR APT GROUP. OVERBILLING, DOUBLE BILLING, HOW DO THEY BILL CLEARWATER Florida

Do you live in an apartment complex that does not have meters in the apartments? I suspect that you do because I experienced the exact same thing you are experiencing.

I used to live in an apartment billed by NWP (Archon) that did not have individual meters in the units. It was explained to me this way:

NWP serves as the water 'biller' for Archon. The city water company is still the 'provider'. The city sends the bill for the entire complex - all residents - to Archon, then Archon sends the bill to NWP. NWP and Archon have a pre-arranged methodology to divide up the usage for the whole complex among the residents and Archon. This 'pre-arrangement' might include things such as number of occupants and number of water taps in the unit to name two. Then, NWP subtracts out all of the common usage (lawn sprinkling, laundry. etc...) and Archon pays for this usage. The rest of the usage is then divided up among the residents. So, if you do not have a meter in your apartment, NWP cannot know exactly how much water you use, so what they do is equitably divide the usage among the residents so that you are paying a loosely fair portion of the total usage for the whole complex.

Now, here is the rub. If the usage for the entire complex goes up, your monthly portion will also go up - even if you didn't use any more water than last month! So, if the complex usage is 10000 gallons and you pay for 2% of the usage, you would pay for 200 gallons of usage. Next month, the usage for the month is 15000 gallons. You pay for 2% of the usage which is now 300 gallons. You may not have used 300 gallons, but you are paying for your portion of the overall usage for the whole complex. The same is true if the total usage goes down, then your portion will also go down. That sort of sucks, but without meters in the units, it's about as equitable as you can get, I suppose.

Now, if you live in a newer complex where each unit has a water meter in the apartment, then you would be billed just for your usage and not a portion of the whole place. But, my guess is that your apartment does not have a meter in it and this is the most equitable way to divide the water use among the residents.

As for the runaround with NWP and with Greystar, both answers are partially correct. You should always call NWP with billing questions, but when Greystar contracts with NWP, Greystar tells NWP what method to use to divide the usage when there are not individual meters in the aparment units. It is likely that people you call at either NWP or Greystar will not know the exact details. I have called and called and called NWP to get answers to my questions and I sort of gleaned the answers from my repeated phone calls to them, which I have tried to explain for you here. Archon didn't know a darn thing about how I was being billed. The NWP website explains the process a little bit, but some of the FAQ answers are vague.

I don't like how this stuff works either and would prefer to live in a newer apartment that has a meter in the unit. Then I would not bound by the usage of the rest of the people in my complex like I was at Archon. I do know this - the days of management companies paying our utility bills are history. We residents will pay for more and more of our services. Personally, I am OK with this because I am a free-market kind of person and I don't have a problem with this type of arrangment of making me pay for usage in my complex. In my research in to NWP and some of the reasons they are even in business suggest that water use goes down when renters are forced to pay for usage. That's good! Another reason is that it cheaper for the management company to hire NWP to collect money and pay and send bills which helps keep rent costs down a little bit, too. Also good! When I was at Archon, there were a couple of months where my bills were lower than previous months and then higher again. The reason was the total usage of the complex went up and down and I paid my percentage of that total each month regardless of how much water I personally used. In our resident meetings what we found out was that people took shorter showers, fixed leaky faucets and toilets and other things to help lower our overall usage - and it worked! Once I understood what NWP was doing, I was OK with what I was being charged (i hated that d**n service fee or whatever it was called, but Comcast and my electric company also have 'customer charges', so I was OK with the NWP 'service fee', too, and it was way cheaper than Comcast or the electric company 'customer charges').

i think the only way you will see your bills go down in your complex if you don't have meters in the aparments is to reduce the usage for the entire complex. I would suggest posting something on the bulletin board or printing something in the complex newsletter or have the property manager put something in everyone's PO box. That's probably the best way to spread the word that the complex as a whole needs to reduce its usage in order to see lower bills. I bet neither Greystar nor NWP have ever mentioned this to you because I don't think even they understand the nature of what is going on.