Water bill...to pay or not to pay.

[optimusprime]

Hi, I am new and did a quick search in this forum and haven't seen any posts that bring up my current situation. I will try to be quick and to the point.

When we first looked at our place we were told by the real estate guy that we had to pay to heat the water but not for the actual water because it's the law. We were also told the landlord provided heat. After signing the lease which had a rider on it saying we pay for the water ourselves. Fast forward, and we find out the original real estate guy works for the managing company (Cayuga Capital LLC) full time dealing with all te buildings they manage. We received our first water bill after about 4 months of living in the apartment and it was for a very low sum (under $25). My roommate said just pay it, but I still sent an email asking for a copy of the bill and an explanation of how they broke down the bill and decided on the sum they added to our rent invoice. The building manager responded with a nasty email basically telling me that they divide the bill up based on the units and to go figure it out myself and if I wanted to know the water bill I would have to go to the utility company and get it myself. I responded that although the bill was only $25 for 3 people for a 4 month period, without an explanation there's nothing from stopping them from charging us a ridiculous price 6 months later.

Guess what happened 6 months later? We get a bill for about $300. even if that was a reasonable amount of money for 6 months worth of water there's a huge problem I have. First of all if there's a meter on the water heater in our apartment, why are they charging us by dividing it up by units? On top of that, because of frequent problems with management, many people moved out of the building in the 6 months between bills. There were often units empty for several weeks if not a month. If the bill jumped so high, is it wrong of me to assume they divided the bill when it came by the number of people currently in the apartment? I went on craigslist when we got it and could see our apartment listed several times over so I know that at least 3 apartments were vacant and the building only has maybe 20-24 units.

Again we asked several times for a copy of the bill with a break down. 2 months later we received a copy of the last page of the bill. Ever seen a utility bill? none of the metered info was show and the bill said page 4 of 4. There was some writing about making sure to pay the 5,000+ and that was that. There wasn't even an address on the page.

We DID NOT PAY IT. We have since moved out but before we did the super told us not to pay it and he brought it up on his own. He said they are screwing people and asking for money and it's against the law. Is this true? My understanding is the law trumps landlords putting unlawful things in the lease. Is this wrong? Our security deposit has not been returned yet, but an email today from the manager hints that he will be removing money from our security deposit.

What should we do?

In addition we scheduled a full walk through with the manager and he blew us off after having us wait for him over an hour the day we moved out. he had us leave the keys with the new super and after hearing over the phone that the apartment was in perfect condition and getting pictures via phone from the super he is claiming the keys for the mailbox are missing and he wants money for that as well. The very next day I emailed him asking him to respond to verify that things went down the way I just explained and that we would receive our deposit in full. He failed to do so but responded w/ "I can keep your security deposit up to 90 if I want to "

I have pictures of the Super in the apartment with us doing a walk through but not the physical handing over of the keys. what can we do?

Thanks for any info you can provide and sorry for the length of this.

[ronin]

First find out where it says that it is illegal to charge for water. It has to be written somewhere. If it is not illegal then there are different strategies to try.

[optimusprime]

Thanks @Ronin. I keep Googling but this forum is the best thing I've found thus far. when i do searches on rent laws, utility laws, and other key words, I keep getting sent to the housing website, this site and the 311 directory for heat/hot water in the winter. I can't seem to find anything about regular water, not the process of heating it.

[ronin]

Well try again. If you can't find it after a thorough try then you have to assume it is an urban legend. Most likely what the law would be is that the LL cannot pass through the water charges to you without providing an itemized statement from the utility.

[optimusprime]

I have managed to get someone from DHCR on the phone for help. They agreed that asking us to pay for cold water (let alone pay for it without proof of how they came to the amount and after having us pay to heat it) is illegal because cold water is a necessity year round. He could not however, provide a source for it in writing so that I could show it to the property manger to avoid court and get my money back.

Update: received an email today for $610 they are claiming it's for an additional $30 for water charges and another $580 for mailbox keys. I wrote back to billing that I do not live there anymore and the guy responded that it was a mistake and the new tenants owe it but he didn't update the email system. Hmmm interesting that 2 weeks ago the building manager claimed we didn't give in the mailbox keys at the closing and he wasn't going to charge us. I guess he was trying to get money out of us for keys he lost and is now trying to get it out of the new tenants but didn't get his lies straight with the billing guy.

[TenantNet]

Perhaps you might want to clue the new tenants in on how the LL operates. Give them a chance to call the bluff.