President's Message

Meeting with Bend City Attorney

Back in the August president’s message I wrote about how our local city governments can put a lien on our properties for unpaid utility bills left from previous tenants. We got a call from City of Bend Attorney Jim Forbes asking if someone from our board would come and meet with their staff regarding unpaid (by tenants) utility bills.

Fellow board member Lawnae Hunter of Plus Property Management and I jumped at the chance to meet with them. As it turns out, the meeting wasn’t about the city’s policy on lien notices. Instead, the city wanted input on how to collect unpaid sewer bills from tenants who have city sewer but not city water. About 25% of houses in Bend have Avion or Roats water but then have city sewer. There is no way for the city to shut off sewer in those cases. Some tenants realize this and just ignore the bill.

We talked about the city charging a deposit when the tenant moves in, but again, there is no incentive to even pay that because the sewer is always working. Lawnae and I asked the city if they could notify us as the property owners when a bill is late, but they said sometimes it takes 90 days to notify (typical government). We told them if we knew within 20-30 days we could take it out of the deposit, but they did not think that was possible. (Redmond and Prineville can do it.) So we concluded that in those houses that have city sewer and not city water, the sewer bill will have to remain in the owner’s name and add the sewer fee to the rent.

The City of Bend is going to draft an ordinance in the future to add this rule. Lawnae and I are going to keep working with the city to get them to notify us of any late bills within 30 days (while the tenant is still accessible) so we can get them paid; otherwise we as the landlords will be getting a lien on our property. Jim Forbes did say in the meeting that they absolutely have to notify us as land owners before they put a lien on our property.

Overall, the meeting was productive and they welcome our further input on this ordinance. I will report about any future meetings.

See you next month!
Terry Luelling