WELLINGTON NORTH – Landlords and property owners in the township will soon be solely responsible for making and collecting water and sewer bill payments.
Approved during a Wellington North council meeting Monday morning, CAO Brooke Lambert said shifting the responsibility of water and sewer billing and collections administration process to property owners will help accommodate the future development anticipated in their community.
While the township previously let landlords and property owners permit tenants to establish property accounts, staff said it allowed accounts to enter arrears consistently and could lead to perceptions that there's little to no consequence for non-payment.
“As more housing is built in the community … we feel it makes sense now to look at this so we don’t get into a situation where the arrears could potentially grow,” said CAO Brooke Lambert, during the meeting.
Lambert said this approach is also consistent with the framework for billing water and sewer services as established in other regions and municipalities.
A staff report said some transfer of accounts have already been initiated in the situation where services in the name of the tenant were in arrears and remained unpaid despite a letter being sent from Wellington North Power.
It's anticipated the process will start in the summer and extend to the fall, with the goal of all accounts being held by property owners by January 2025.
Isabel Buckmaster is the Local Journalism Initiative reporter for GuelphToday. LJI is a federally-funded program.
