strata title unit no meters

Hi All,

i looked at a ground floor villa unit on the weekend and noticed it wasn't separately metered for power/water, Is this normal for a strata unit? is there any issues with this set up?

Cheers, Elives

 

The bill/s get paid by the BC which is then paid for by the unit holders in the quarterly levies.

 

I understand that, I want to know if there are any cons to it as in does it devalue the property by not being separately metered?

 

The downside is that there is little encouragement to reduce utility use unless everyone does so. And there is usually someone who simply does not care as individual action does not bring a reward. So utility bills are usually comparatively high. Why sit under a fan when the neighbouring air-cons are roaring away??
Marg

 

yea hadn't thought about the a/c that'd be a killer. Cheers

 

The upside is lower unit rate (due to higher use) and reduced fixed line cost

 

I've found that individual meters are better as you don't pay for an apportion of the unit blocks' usage.

In Vic (I think), the meter/submeters need to be directly related to your tenant. Otherwise, the LL will cop the usage charge if an amount.

More importantly, separate meters mean -
(1) You don't pay any water usage charge
(2) Your property will go up in value (as it becomes uneconomical for the residents to maintain their hydroponic set up)

 

In Queensland it is extremely rare for a body corporate to pay for water and collect via levies. Normally the water utility will invoice each unit owner directly and just apportion the usage based on the lot's contribution schedule entitlements - i.e. you pay it directly to the water utility, not to the body corporate. If the property is in Queensland Urban Utilities' area, they will move to the set-up I've described above at no extra cost and by request by the body corproate.

Not having individual electricity meters is even more unusual - I have never seen this. Normally you have your own meter and it is either read by the utility (AGL, Origin etc) or by the body corporate or their sub-metering agent (Meter2Cash, Metered Energy Holdings etc). You should not be paying a share of everyone else's power. If you are, this is normally fairly easy to change.

Matt