Water Meters – Are You Buying Someone Else’s Water?

Almost every year since I moved to California in 1985, I have heard of some association that learned that it has been paying water bills for water meters that serve other properties, or conversely, that one association learned that a second association has been paying water bills for meters that have been irrigating the property of the first. When this occurs, the accusations begin to fly from the current board to prior boards, from the association to its developer, from the association to one or more prior management companies, from the current management company to the prior management company, and so on.

The fact is that most association boards and their managers assume that, if they are getting a water bill, it is for water they have used. When the mistake is discovered, many times it is a mistake that has continued undetected for years, and in some cases, for a decade or more. While there is probably some recourse for recovering money that was paid on someone else’s behalf, there is probably not much chance for recovering more than the payments made over the last two because of the applicable statutes of limitations. There is obviously no written agreement between the parties, or the mistake would not have occurred. Thus the four year statute of limitations will not apply. Unless there is some provable fraud by the party obtaining the “free” water, most likely the statute of limitations will be two years. (See Code of Civil Procedure section 339 regarding obligations or liabilities not founded upon an instrument in writing.) Also, because there is no written agreement between the parties, there can be no attorney’s fees clause, and thus any legal fees expended in the dispute will reduce the ultimate recovery and increase the chances that any settlement will be for less than what has been paid unknowingly by the injured party.

Many of these problems date back to when the association was first formed. The same developer may have built several adjoining properties, or adjoining properties may have been built by different developers around the same time. The associations may have been managed by the same management company, even if the developers were different. For whatever reason, including a mistake by the applicable city water department or water district, the wrong party gets the bill and pays it. From that point on, all future bills are addressed to the wrong party and paid month after month, year in and year out.

How can you determine if this is happening in your association? First, you need to start with each water bill that you pay. The water bill will either have a meter number on it or an account number from which you can obtain the meter number from the local water district. You need to identify the meter number for each such water meter and match that up with the meter number in the field. If you have difficulty determining where the water meters are located that do match up with your bill, the water district should be able to tell you approximately where they are located, since their meter readers need to find all of them to prepare the bills.

Once you have identified the water meters, you also need to know what the water meter supplies. In some cases, we have found water meters that connect to the irrigation systems of two different associations. This may happen if a developer originally plans one development and later decides to create two or more associations over the property originally planned for one association. The developer may form the additional association or associations but forgets that the water meter is irrigating several slopes now encompassing slopes in more than one association. Of course you can also work backwards, starting with the water meters you know serve your association and then seeking to match them up with the right water bills.

However you check on the meters, you really want to make sure that you are not paying for anyone else’s water and that someone else is not paying for yours. While you may have gotten a “free ride” for some time, sooner or later it will be discovered. Also, once you know that you are obtaining water that someone else is paying for, if you continue, the act then becomes a knowing taking of someone else’s water which may provide sufficient intent to constitute a criminal misdemeanor for theft of utility service under Penal Code section 498.

Since these problems continue to surface on a regular basis, there are obviously associations that have never verified that they are paying just their own water bills, or paying the water bills for all the meters that serve their respective associations. Thus, it is a good idea to prepare a map showing the location of each water meter and the areas that it serves. The map showing the location of the meters and what they serve should be given to the association’s landscape and plumbing contractors so that the water meters can be located to shut off the appropriate valve anytime there is an emergency, such as a burst pipe. It is then critical to correlate each meter on the map with a serial number and water bill account number, to be sure that the association is not paying for too many or too few water meters. It is certainly advisable for any newly-formed association to check on all water meters and to make sure that all the information is accurate by the time the association is fully built out. Also, when an association changes management, it is advisable for the new manager to verify this information early in the manager’s tenure. Once the information is verified, it should be kept in a safe place and passed from one board to the next along with other important records.

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