The same day that CBC published a story about an owner of the property of Hintonburg caught with the eight -year -old water bill, Meg Dolland received a letter from the city.
He had heard about Robert Haslett, who discovered this year that he was in the hook for almost $ 500 for arrears in water and interest accumulated by the previous owner, who died in 2019.
Now, it was Dolland’s turn.
His letter asked him to pay $ 435 for only 10 days of water consumption, plus interest, dating back to March 2020, just before taking possession of his home at Old Ottawa South.
“Five years are not reasonable,” said Dolland. “$ 400 of an invoice for 10 days is not reasonable. Let’s be adult here and recognize that this is unfair.”
In his opinion, it is not fair that the city takes so long to notify him about the position, with accumulated interests day by day. The city takes interest at a rate of 0.0417 percent daily, composed every 15 days. For five years, that could mean hundreds of dollars in additional costs.
The previous owner of his house did not even live in the house, Dolland said. She called the “crazy” situation, and said he would have acted quickly to pay the bill, if he had known about it.
“It feels like an excess, as a misuse of power,” he said.
‘You have to be joking’
Dolland is only one of several people who communicated with CBC with stories about delays in the water left by a previous owner to chase them years after the fact.
John Dathan is another, and the arrears for his house in Westboro return even more. The city asks you to cover the delays for a period of two weeks in the summer of 2017. Interest, the total has reached $ 369.
“My first call went to the city to say: ‘You have to be joking’, because I did not understand how it was responsible for this in any way or form,” Dathan said.
“Why wouldn’t they have contacted me before about that?” asked.
The city told Dathan that he had tried to reach the previous owner and raise their balance, without success. But Dathan told CBC that the previous owner of his house was a construction company. He said his wife found the online builder in seconds.
“Everything feels strange,” he said. “Why, suddenly, after seven years, is this coming?”
A problem of ‘disconcerting’
Ann Marcil received his letter last Monday. The delays date back to 2018, shortly before buying their home in Orléans. In later years, less than a month of arrears have risen to $ 576.
“Why did it take seven years to take this?” Marcil asked. “And why are we responsible for water payments at a time when we didn’t even have the house?”
The city told CBC that the water delays bind to the property, not the individual. They cannot simply be canceled, according to provincial regulations. The city said “does everything possible” to charge the previous owner before collecting the invoice to the new owner, but that can take years.
But Marcil said it would have been easy to track the previous owner. In his case, he was an occupant, not a builder. She said that she would have helped the city to find them, if she had asked.
“It’s really disconcerting,” he said. “I could have given them information about the previous owner. I have that information, so I think they have really dropped the ball.”
Dana Thibeault received her letter earlier this month. It included the same family line: “This notice is to inform you that there was an excellent water and sewerage account for the property of an earlier owner.”
In his case, the delays covered about two months in 2017. They have now reached $ 534.33.
Unlike Haslett and many of the other residents, Thibeault has managed to get a significant detail from the city: he told CBC that he learned that the original sum of the arrears was approximately $ 213. The rest, it seems, it is interest.
“At first, I was really upset,” he said. “How can this happen for eight years?”
It is still frustrated because the city did not let him know faster that there were outstanding positions.
“I would have saved all a lot of work and would have saved us to go through our insurance to pay this interest,” he said.
The city is advising residents trapped with the arrears of a previous owner to do precisely that, saying that title insurance will generally cover the charges.
It is not a bombing, says City
CBC asked if the recent wave of letters represents a Blitz water bill, and the city replied that it does not.
“The city of Ottawa is not carrying out a campaign directed to collect on delays in water,” said Joseph Muhuni, the city’s deputy treasurer for income.
“Rather, these notices are part of the established collection processes and procedures, which include routine accounts reviews.”
Muhuni said he understands that invoices can be unexpected and cause anguish. He encouraged housing buyers to work with their lawyers to obtain certificates that can identify outstanding water charges.
However, the real estate lawyer, Rita Asangarani, previously told CBC that these certificates are not infallible and sometimes the charges are lost immediately before a sale.
Muhuni said that residents with questions about their water invoices can call 613-580-2444 or send an email to income@ottawa.ca.
