2024 Ag Section Inside! Wednesday, April 3, 2024 Vol. 47, No. 14
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Viking to make landlords Beaver County open house for Equity responsible for utility bills Patricia Harcourt Editor
A decision by Viking Council is to give landlords the sole responsibility for receiving and paying utility bills on property they own. Tenants will no longer have the liability or be named on town bills. The town will send the bill in every case to the owner, who has sole legal responsibility for it being paid. Tenants would no longer be able to have their name on a utility bill as the user, or be legally liable for the bill. A motion was passed by council March 18 to support the amending of Utility Bylaw 2020-697, and direct administration to create a draft bylaw for public review. Chief Administrative Officer Doug Lefsrud explained the frustration of having to mediate with both landowners and their tenants when it comes to the payment of utility bills. “Administration continually works between property owners and their renter on outstanding invoices,” he said. “It’s felt the responsibility solely falls upon the property owner,” he said. “Administration has reached out to other municipalities and the signing of a utilities service agreement between the property owner
and the town is only standard practice as outlined in their bylaws.” Council agreed with administration’s request to add certain statements and understandings into Section 54 of utility bylaw 2020697. These changes will require a bylaw amendment. They read as follows: “In all cases the owner shall be liable for the cost of water and wastewater services supplied to a property, regardless of whether the property is occupied by the owner or a tenant.” As well, “All invoices issued by the town shall be sent to the owner. The town will, at the owner’s request, send a copy of the invoice issued to an owner to a non-residential tenant, provided that the town shall not be required to seek payment from a tenant or any invoice issued to an owner, whether a copy is sent to the tenant or not.” After the council meeting, Lefsrud explained: “Currently administration is dealing with situations where the landlords do not feel responsible for the outstanding utility bills by their renter. Administration feels this responsibility lies on the property owner solely.” Currently, he said, the property owner and renter have to sign a let-
Area Structure Plan
Pictured Above: Beaver County Reeve Kevin Smook and Viking Deputy Mayor Cindy Lefsrud discuss aspects of the Equity Industrial Park’s Area Structure Plan on display at the recent Open House in Ryley. Read more about the open house in the Beaver County Chronicle - inside.
ter of agreement with the town. “Administration would like that agreement to be with the landlord/property owner only,” he said. “The town has no say on who rents their property but should still be expected to deal with all the bureaucracy with individual renters.
“We are asking for that to change.” Council also passed a policy on this issue called Town of Viking Action on Unpaid Utility Accounts, Policy GOV-010. This was not discussed at the meeting, but the bylaw amendment will be coming back to council for third and final reading.