Question: Can a duplex without separate water meters split the water usage costs based on the number of residents in each unit?
Our two units are not separately metered. One unit has four residents, and the other unit has two residents. We are a self-managed body corporate in Queensland. Can we split the water usage costs based on the number of residents in each unit? Can the unit with four residents be charged a higher proportion of the water usage bill than the lot with only two residents?
Answer: Charges need to be apportioned according to the contribution schedule lot entitlements.
Legally, there is no proper way to implement an arrangement based on occupancy levels of the respective lots.
A question arises whether the water supply authority (council or the like) can create separate accounts for each lot in the scheme. Presumably, that might necessitate an upgrade of the public infrastructure and installation of separate meters, which the water authority may have no interest in (perhaps not without the imposition of infrastructure upgrade charges to the body corporate / lot owners).
Section 196 of the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 (BCCMA) applies where there no practicable way for a utility service provider to measure the extent to which a utility service (e.g. water) is supplied to individual lots in a scheme and the common property. In such circumstances:
- Where each lot has separate accounts with the utility service provider, the required contribution from each owner is calculated based on the contribution schedule lot entitlements (CSLE’s) – usually equal in duplexes.
- Where the Body Corporate takes on responsibility for payment of a single account with the utility service provider for the whole of scheme land, the required contribution from each owner must be collected through levies calculated:
- according to the extent of supply if it can be measured; or
- otherwise:
- equally between the lots; or
- based on the CSLE’s
Accordingly, the bottom line is that separate meters need to be installed in order to charge on a user-pays basis. That may necessitate an improvement to the common property to install meters for each lot. A request could be made to the other owner for such an upgrade to occur. If the request is refused, such refusal could be challenged in the Office of the Commissioner for Body Corporate and Community Management.
Until such time as a metering system can properly measure the water usage of each lot, the charges will need to be apportioned according to the CSLE’s, or equally (which, in a duplex, is likely to be the same thing.)
This post appears in Strata News #725.
Jarad Maher Grace Lawyers E: jarad.maher@gracelawyers.com.au