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I manage a duplex property with individual house numbers and gas and electric meters plus a third "House" electric meter for common area which consists of a yard light and sprinkler timer.
Last December I rented both units to a single family and they put the utilities in their name.
The Gas and Electric company did a fraud audit because one of the gas meters has almost no usage and the House meter also has little usage... a 10 watt light bulb takes very little power.
Anyway, the Utility told my tenant since the property is being used by a single family the extra meters have to be removed...
Never heard of such a thing and just waiting to see how this unfolds.
The home was built in 1922 as a single family home and converted with permits in 1943 to a two family house to ease the WWII housing shortage.
You need to tell them Not to take away the meters IF you ever plan to rent it to 2 families again.
My Home Health Aid gets 2 electric bills. One covers the Mobile home the other covers the Well, Outside lights & A/C
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Utility companies look at a meter as a revenue producing asset. I'm in commercial/industrial real estate and when doing maintenance we stopped using one of our two meters and the city charged us a $3,000/month penalty until it started showing use again. Even though the other showed the increased use that would have been on the other. In your case it is probably their policy to remove it and then charge you a nice fat installation fee if you ever need to have it put back in. I would guess (from experience) that you can complain all you want but they will do it anyway.
Probably lots of upgrades to set/split service now required as compared to the last two permit which was 1984.
Not really sure about minimums because the house meter never registers much... we always pay the minimum charge each month of $7 with plenty of kW to spare.
All the meters are smart meters so no one typically comes out to ready them...
I manage another duplex with the same set up... also WWII conversion and so far no problems and it is rented to one family.
Found managment much easier by eliminating tenant disputes over parking and noise when only one family is living there...
If there are two qualified adult tenants, would it make a difference if the two units were billed to two separate people and the common meter to you?
I gather the same person now has all 3 meters in one name?
Putting the house meter in her name was a mistake as I have no problem paying it...
Last month when the House meter bill did not arrive I called the Utility to inquire and was told they could not discuss it with me as my name was not on the account.
After a couple of minutes of getting no where I said if someone else wants to pay my bill... OK
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