I bought a house on August 19, 2021…the water bill cycle ended 8/24. Seller sent the bill to the titling company….then her realtor…who sent it to my realtor… who then sent it to me. I paid 23k above asking, btw. I ignored the email and life went on. In a recent conversation a realtor friend said I’m the ahole for not addressing the situation. Thoughts??
YTA. It can’t have been that much. If you owned the house when the bill was incurred you should pay it.
At the very least you should have responded with your reasons why you weren’t going to.
YTA.
Why shouldn’t you pay for the water usage after you took ownership of the house?
At minimum, act like a grownup and respond to your realtor.
You bought the house on the 21st, you own it. All utility bills after that date are on you. YTA.
YTA and so is your realtor (not the friend who corrected you). It’s your house for those 5 days so it’s your bill. Your realtor should have arranged to collect an estimated payment from you in advance and managed settling the bill when it came in.
Pay what you owe.
YTA. It’s your bill for your water usage. Why would you pay over asking unless that’s market.
This is basic real estate and property transfer protocol. How do you buy a house but not know something as simple as that?
The day you take the title and possession, you become responsible for paying for the services that are rendered to your address. Pretty basic stuff. You own it? You pay for it. It’s part of homeownership.
YTA. It’s your debt to pay because you owned the house, regardless of your actual paying price.
You each should have contacted the water utility to have the bill changed over on the closing date in advance of closing. They would then split the days. YTA
Is it like $4?
YTA; you paid 25k above asking price is your poor negotiating skills, not an excuse to skip out on your part of the bill. Cheap skate.
“A person asked me to pay for a thing I used,” is really your complaint?
Grow up and pay for the damn water, you infant. YTA
If Aug 19 was the date of closing; signing of documents and funding the seller – all utilities from that date forward are your responsibility unless they were negotiated into the buying agreement
YTA. It was your responsibility to present your Settlement Sheet to the Water Revenue Bureau, if your deed was not recorded. If your deed was recorded, then the account should have been auto-updated by the city, and if it **didn’t**, the onus was on **you**, as the **homeowner**, to correct things.
“When you receive a bill, whether it has your name on it or not, it belongs to your **home’s account** and is **yours to pay**. Your first bill will **most likely include usage for days you didn’t own the house**. Remember that the **title company reconciled the account at closing**, **paid the seller’s current bills**, and **credited you** for the usage and rents during those days of the billing cycle that occurred before your ownership.”
https://www.phila.gov/services/water-gas-utilities/become-a-water-customer/property-owners/
https://www.phillyhomegirls.com/blog/setting-up-utilities-in-philadelphia-and-suburbs
Pro rata is a thing.
You are supposed to provide utility companies with your move in date and they will sort the billing out. They likely would have just added that 5 days on to your next full cycle.