Tenacious Property Manager and AW Services Group Team Up to Identify Root- cause of City Water Overbilling, Finding More Than $40,000 in Charges to be Refunded by the City
Property Management Identifies a Discrepancy with Water Utility Expenses
After an internal expense audit flagged unusually high municipal water bills, an astute property manager asks AW Services Group, who provides water submetering and tenant utility billing services, to assist in diagnosing an extraordinary discrepancy between water usage reported by installed water submeters and city reported usage.
In February of 2024, AW Services Group, was contacted by the property management of Barshop & Oles Company in Austin, Texas to help identify some discrepancies between city water bills and usage reported by the water submetering system installed at their retail property.
After auditing their expenses at the Bar W Marketplace retail property, management questioned why the city was showing usage and billing for more than $18,000 for building E when water submetering is only reporting $1648 of usage – more than 10x the amount of water that the water submeters are reporting.
AW Services billing team requested the city water bills for the Bar W and Bar W Phase II retail property to perform a same-cycle water/sewer analysis comparing city reported usage vs. water submetered reported usage.
A detailed review confirmed the city was billing for ten times more usage than reported by water submeters installed by AW Services for building E, and the investigation to identify the root cause continued. Property management monitored the situation after exhausting every possible step on their side by checking every tenant space and vacancy for leaks and installing submeters for each tenant.
Once property management shared a picture of the master water meter the issue was plain to see. The city has been mis-reading this meter by ignoring a decimal point so all reads are 10x actual usage (See below).
Taking this new finding into account, a complete analysis of the city municipal water bills, correcting for the meter read error, showed that the city has cumulatively overbilled Bar W properties by more than $40,000.
The property is currently working with the city for a refund.
Conclusion
A tenacious property manager teamed up with AW Services Group billing team to identify the root cause of “insanely” high city water bills. The discrepancy is an example of human error rather than equipment failure or leaky toilets or underground plumbing leaks.
It serves as a testament to the importance of examining expenses and asking why as well as a reminder to periodically ask your submetering partner to perform a Water/Sewer Analysis for your retail commercial property.
Interested in a free water/sewer analysis for your retail property? Contact us here.
