Thursday, October 1, 2015

Utilities/RUBS

One of the most common questions I'm asked is about who pays for utilities, the resident, or the property owner.  Here is the most current information available as of 10/1/15.

- All residents pay for the electricity directly to PGE.  All residents are required to have their own PGE account, and your lease requires you to keep it on and current.

- As of March, 2015, all new residents will be pay for water, sewer, and garbage with their rent, as rent, directly to the property, through a program the PUC has created called "Resident Utility Billing System", commonly referred to as RUBS.

- Currently, existing residents do not pay for water, sewer, or garbage.  During 2016/2017, I'm expecting to transition existing residents (slowly, a few at a time) to RUBS.

Every month, residents who are on RUBS will receive a statement from our vendor, "Yes Energy Management", that will notify them what their rent amount for the first of the month is, what their utility charges are, and what the total amount due as rent will be on the first of the month.  If the entire amount due is not paid in full by the first of the month, your rent will be late.  You can use this statement to pay exactly what you owe, and to try to modulate your resource consumption to try to reduce expenses across the property.

You can visit the Yes Energy Management website for more details, or you can contact me with additional questions.