Oh, dear City of mine, why are you so inefficient and arbitrary sometimes? Having fully recovered from the Dumpster-flipping incident, I’m currently on hold with the Department of Public Utilities in an attempt to keep the water on at the Duplex that we are selling on a land contract. At the time the land contract was signed, the Water was transferred over into one of the purchaser’s names. This was June 2014. Yesterday, I received a panicked call from the other purchaser telling me that the City was going to turn the water off unless I paid an $854 bill. Huh? Why? Granted, I had received a bill back in October to that effect, but I called the Department and told them that I wasn’t paying it as the land contract purchasers were responsible. I thought that was the end of the story.
Today’s representative did a little digging and his story is summarized as follows: The City audited their accounts and, since this building is a duplex without separated meters, the account must stay in the record owner’s name. This change happened in Summer 2015 (one year AFTER we transferred the bill over) without any notification to me except a copy of the “Final Bill” to the land contract purchaser, I guess. No letter. No explanation. I owe $854 right now or they will turn the water off. I asked to speak with a supervisor.
To her credit, the supervisor actually went back and listened to the recording from October. She confirmed that I wasn’t told that the bill had reverted to me. After expressing my frustration, she approved payment of half the amount due today to avoid the shut-off and the other half within 30 days. Done and done.
I’m closing on the vacant lot that is right next door to the Duplex on Monday. After the house was torn down, I was contacted by the City with an offer to buy the lot for $1,410 (or $705 with proof of spending $705 to improve/maintain it). I need to confirm that all loose ends from that are tied up and then I’ll be ready to transfer the Duplex to the land contract purchaser. I’m over it.