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Oregon Housing and Community Services

Utility charges for water and sewer

Utility charges for water and sewer in manufactured home parks and floating home marinas

Landlord/owners (“Landlords") of manufactured home parks and floating home marinas are required to provide water and wastewater connections to the homes in the parks and marinas they own, per ORS 90.730. 

According to OR 90.574(2)(b), landlords are also required to deliver a handout to each tenant that describes what utilities are available, how they are made available to the tenant, who is responsible for paying for the utility, and what is the method of billing.  There are many utilities a landlord can provide. This handout only addresses water and wastewater/sewage. 

The handout also explains types of utility billing, when a landlord may change from one billing method to another, and the rights and responsibilities of tenants and landlords when it comes to utility billing. It only discusses water and wastewater utility billing.   

  1. Billing types: There are five basic ways that an owner of a manufactured home park or floating marina community can charge a tenant for water and sewage utilities.  
    1. Direct billing: The tenant receives the utility directly from the service provider.  The service provider bills the tenant, and the tenant pays the service provider directly. The landlord is not involved in the provision or billing of the utility.
    2. Rent-included billing: The utility is provided directly to the park, and the service provider bills the owner for the entire park. The cost of the utility is included in the tenant's monthly space rent. The rent can be raised annually based on rent increase laws.
    3. Pro rata billing: The utility is provided directly to the park, and the service provider bills the owner for the entire park. The landlord then splits up the bill in equal portions and bills the tenants their portion. Those portions could be based on the number of occupied spaces or some other measurement that correlates with consumption or use of the service. Owner uses a pass-through billing method.
      1. Landlord cannot include any administrative costs or charges, only the amount charged by the utility. 
      2. Landlord must reasonably allocate the cost among the tenants, such as by square footage, number of tenants or occupants, or number of occupied spaces in the facility.
      3. Landlord must provide a written bill with a due date for payment to tenants.
    4. Submeter billing: The utility is provided directly to the park, and the service provider bills the owner for the entire park based on the usage measured by the master meter. The landlord installs submeters on the water line into the tenant's space or home and measures the actual water consumption by the tenant. The tenant is billed based on the measurement of the submeter attached to their home.
      1. If submeter billing is set up for water for the tenants, the landlord can also bill the tenant, via pro rata, for sewer service and wastewater.
      2. The landlord owns and must maintain the submeter.
      3. A payment plan is provided to each tenant 90 days before the first payment is due.
      4. The landlord owns and maintains the submeters located in their park or marina. Landlord is responsible to place the submeter and not to have it interfere with tenants' access to the home. 
      5. The landlord or landlord's agent is allowed to enter the tenants' space only once per month only to read the submeter, between the hours of 8 a.m.-6 p.m., according to ORS 90.580(3). 
      6. Submeter installation: The landlord must give 24 hours' notice prior to entering space to do this work and is responsible for restoring the same and home to previous condition (ORS 90.562).
      7. The landlord can recover the cost of the installation of the submeter by 1) raising the rent or 2) imposing a special assessment to a Special Assessment Plan (SAP). An SAP is not applicable to marina communities.
      8. The submeter bill is required to include the following:
        1. Charge for the water into the tenant space
        2. Wastewater as a percentage of the water
        3. A pro rata portion of the water provider's charge for sewer service
        4. A pro rata portion of any public service charge
    5. Park-specific billing: The landlord and the tenants agree to convert from a different billing method to one that most tenants support and that allocates the cost for water and wastewater service fairly among the tenants. The landlord does not collect more from all tenants than the water provider bills to the landlord. The landlord may not include any installation or repair costs to the water infrastructure required by the new billing method. 
  2. Conversion from one billing method to another: Landlords are allowed to convert the utility billing method at any time, without approval from tenants.  
    1. Converting to submeter billing from rent-included or pro rata:
      1. Landlord to give the tenants, at least one month prior, a written notice of conversion, describing the details of the utility conversion, including a schedule for the conversion.
      2. Landlord must also meet with tenants at a scheduled meeting to answer any questions about the conversion.
      3. The first three billing periods are a trial period, where the landlord will bill the original billing method and give the tenants a mock-up of what the tenants' bills would be with the new billing method. 
      4. If converting from rent-included, landlord must reduce the rent to reflect the amount of water now being billed separately. To figure out this amount, the landlord will average the utility cost over the 12 months preceding the first live submeter bill and deduct this amount from the rent. 
      5. The landlord may continue to recover the cost of the utility for common areas with rent-included billing.
    2. Converting to pro rata billing from rent-included billing (ORS 90.574):
      1. Landlord to give the tenants, at least one month prior, a written notice of conversion, describing the details of the utility conversion, including a schedule for the conversion.
      2. Landlord must also meet with tenants at a scheduled meeting to answer any questions about the conversion. 
      3. Landlord is required to test all water lines in the park (within the tenant's space and any common areas) after the conversion and at least every three years thereafter. The test results must be made available to tenants, and the landlord must repair any leaks discovered by the testing within a reasonable time. This is outlined in ORS 90.574 (5).
    3. Converting to park-specific billing from rent-included or pro rata billing:
      1. Landlord may propose to the tenants that they agree on any form of water billing so long as the method allocates the cost for water and wastewater service fairly among the tenants and the landlord does not collect more from the tenants than the utility provider bills the landlord. The landlord also may not include any repair or installation costs required by the new billing method.
      2. Unlike landlord switches to pro rata billing or submeter billing, this change must be made with agreement of the tenants. A majority of voting tenants must agree to this change, after a vote by ballot. The majority is calculated based only on tenants who choose to vote, not a majority of all tenants. Each space gets one vote.
      3. The ballot may include no more than two choices, and the ballot must make clear that the tenant can vote yes for only one choice or no for both choices:
        1. Conversion to the landlord's proposed park-specific billing method;
        2. Conversion to either pro rata billing or submeter billing (consistent with the rules in the handout).
      4. The landlord must give the notice of conversion at least one month prior to the vote and must hold the meeting at least one week before the vote. Park-specific billing is not available for marina tenancies. Additionally, it is not available for a conversion from submeter billing.
  1. Additional notes about utility billing
    1. Wastewater billing can be assessed by the water provider as a percentage of the water into the park as measured by the master meter. If the utility provider does not charge for wastewater as a percentage of the water consumed, the provider will usually have a separate flat charge for both waste and stormwater – known as sewer service – and the landlord may then pass that cost on to tenants on a pro rata billing basis.
    2. With pro rata billing, submeter billing, and park-specific billing, the landlord must give each tenant a written statement or bill of the amount due — called the “utility or service charge" — and the due date. The notice may be mailed or delivered to the tenant (see ORS 90.155 for the methods and timing for delivery of notices under Oregon law) or, if the rental agreement provides, it may be sent by “electronic means," (i.e., email or text). The landlord may combine the utility charge billing with a rent statement, but the two amounts must be stated separately. The due date may be the date of delivery of the utility charge bill, but the utility or service charge is not late until at least seven days later, per ORS 90.562 (3).
    3. Utility or service charges are not rent (ORS 90.562 (4)). A landlord may not use a nonpayment of rent termination of tenancy notice for failure to pay the utility or service charge but may use a 30-day curable termination notice under ORS 90.630 (given no sooner than the seventh day after the due date). For example, if the due date is the first day of the month, the utility charge would be late on the eighth and the termination notice could be given that day. A landlord may charge a limited late fee for utility or service charges, for a second violation after a warning notice. This is outlined in ORS 90.302 (3) (b) (A).
    4. A landlord may not make a profit from the utility or service, nor charge the tenant any of the landlord's administrative expenses. All the tenant payments together may not exceed the amount the landlord is charged by the water provider. See ORS 90.568 (4) and ORS 90.572 (3) for more information.
    5. With submeter billing only, a landlord may pass on to tenants the charge by a third-party billing company to read the submeters (often done remotely/electronically) and bill tenants for their usage as measured by the submeter. The billing company may not add any other costs, such as for repairs, collections, or inspections, and the landlord must allow tenants to inspect the third party's billing records.
    6. With pro rata or submeter billing, a landlord may add to the utility or service charge a pro rata portion of any public service charge if the rental agreement so allows. A public service charge means a charge imposed by a utility provider or a local government for a municipal service or provision of public resources to the park, such as street maintenance, transit, public safety, and recreational parks – but not including property taxes or license fees. A landlord may unilaterally amend the rental agreement to impose a new or increased public service charge 60 days after providing written notice. The public service charge must be stated separately in the utility or service charge bill as outlined in ORS 90.315 (1) and (4), ORS 90.562 (3), and ORS 90.570.
    7. A landlord may add to the billing a pro rata charge for water and waste/stormwater service to common areas available for tenants' use, such as a community room or pool. This must be described in the rental agreement separately from the utility charge for water/sewer water to the tenant's space.
    8. With pro rata or submeter billing only, the landlord must post the facility water bills in a place accessible to tenants, which may include posting on the internet. A landlord also must allow a tenant to inspect all billing records over the previous year showing the tenant's charges for all utility or service charges, not just for water, after a written request and at a reasonable time in either a manager's office or a location the landlord and tenant agree on.
  2. Oregon Revised Statutes related to utilities in manufactured dwelling park:
    1. ORS 90.730(3)(a) and (c) – Landlords are required to provide water and wastewater connections to the homes in parks and marinas.
    2. ORS 90.510 – Landlords are required to provide written statement of policy to prospective tenants describing, among other things, (i) what utilities are available along with who furnishes them and who is responsible for paying for them and (ii) the policy regarding the method of billing for those utilities. There must be a written rental agreement attached to the statement of policy.
    3. ORS 90.512(4)(b) – A landlord is not allowed to amend the written rental agreement without the consent of the tenants, which includes water billing.
    4. ORS 90.582(3) – A landlord violation of these statutes entitles the tenant to recover the greater of one month's rent or twice the tenant's actual damages.
    5. ORS 90.580(5) – New parks built or existing ones expanded to more than 200 spaces after June 23, 2011 must use submeter billing for the new/expanded-over-200 spaces.
    6. ORS 90.568 – Statute concerning pro bata billing
    7. ORS 90.562 – All utility billing
    8. ORS 90.572 – Statute concerning sub-meter billing.