Is anyone charging residents back for common area electricity?

Is anyone charging residents back for common area electricity?

What do you mean?

Shannon Green Are residents paying for common area electric.

Ed Buckley Never heard of that being done.

I live at a Greystar property and I am being charged

Debbie Brownhill they do like nickel and diming people

Oooh. That’s kinda brilliant. Somebody gotta pay for all these new super bright led building lights!!! Lol

No

I think it’s based upon building owners. We were Alliance res and now Greystar and we charge common electric. Our residents pay between $6-12 per month.
Although I just had a prospect come in from another property where they were paying $200 per month for common electric. Now that is ridiculous.

No. But it’s coming! With taxes, insurance and employee cost rising, clients are trying to figure out how to make up those deficits!

Several Managment companies are already charging for common electric in Atlanta

We have rubs on water/sewer, flat rate for trash , rubs for electric and resident pays provider for gas

Yes

It’s a brilliant idea. I say get legal to provide addendums to sign at move in. I have one guy who we charge allocated use for his estimated interior usage and he is furious because his average electric bill is $42.00 per month. Even threatened to call his attorney.
He’s been a nightmare about his bill for years.

We charge common area expenses back to residents.

Lots do.

Yes.

Included in the rent or a separate fee?

We have discussed it...

Many do.

So funny thing. We switched from bluetrend to real page for our utility charges and realized we were losing almost 300k in just 5 months because bluetrend already had those fees set in.
Soooo starting this month with my renewals and anyone moving in
They will be charged “common area electric and water”
Divided by total number of units on the property.
I thought it was horrible timing. But

I didn’t think u could do this

WHAAAT?? No way!!!

Seriously? This is becoming worse than the cable company. The advertised rate is only half the story.

Feels like I’ve seen some lawsuits on that, but I could be wrong.

Yes do it, conservice or real page utility management could help you determine how much to charge back.. based on usage. They will ask for your bills

Why and how do you charge this?

Ave5 in Colorado does. We did it on all properties. 100% of it. It was common there

Chad Christian I’m in Colorado! Only worked on 1 property where they charged residents everything even property taxes! I gave notice when they came in! No transparency to residents!

Chad Christian Yes, I just looked it up! This was not common practice for Colorado based companies! I think a couple adopted the practice! Hope you’re enjoying Texas!

I did it in Vegas but that wouldn't fly in CA

New to me in Texas . bad time to start a new fee . however interested in learning more if feasible in the Texas Market

I’m at a mid rise in Atlanta and yes we do. I never get complaints about it. Most of my market charges as well

If we’re paying for common area electricity might as well charge us for elevator repair, building the unit, landscaping costs, trash removal and make everyone buy their own unit then you can call it a house in a neighborhood instead of an apartment

It is common outside the US to charge “service charges” that cover many of the common area expenses. In some countries the service charges are quite large.

I’m with AMS Utility Billing and we have a number of clients passing along common area electric. You can actually do a portion of it as well, say 50%. If you are afraid that it will upset current residents to start this during an active lease we can help roll this out to new leases and renewals only. If anyone would like to know what this would look like on their property please feel free to shoot me a PM or an email at [email protected]

I hope folks that are charging a flat fee per month are being careful to monitor that they aren’t bringing in more from the residents than they are being charged by the electric provider.
A utility billing company could electronically receive those bills automatically each month and do RUBS calculations to be sure and bill an exact percentage to your residents each month. This is included with the processing fee that is passed to the resident each month and takes the responsibility out of your hands.
If only I knew someone who worked for a utility billing company. Oh, wait, that’s me. I work for a utility billing company

No and i hope we dont. We already charge allocated water, sewer. Trash. Resident already pay valet trash and pest control