Most of Florida leaves multifamily utility billing lightly regulated. Miami-Dade County does not. The county’s remetering ordinance is one of the most detailed local utility billing regimes in the country, and it governs a market large enough that most national owners and operators eventually run into it.
It is also easy to get wrong, because the ordinance regulates things state law does not touch at all: who has to register, what a resident bill must contain, how disputes are handled, and what an owner is permitted to keep. This post walks through what the ordinance requires and where owners most often get caught.
For the statewide picture, see our post on Florida utility billing regulations.
What “Remetering” Means in Miami-Dade
Multi-unit properties served by the Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department (WASD) receive water through a master meter for the structure. To bill residents individually, a submeter is installed at the plumbing entry point of each unit.
The county calls this remetering, and its ordinance, Chapter 8A, Article XVIII of the Miami-Dade County Code, defines it as the resale of water service by use of a submeter by an owner at a rate or charge that does not exceed the owner’s actual purchase price. That definition carries the entire economic model of the ordinance: remetering in Miami-Dade is a cost-recovery mechanism, not a revenue line, and the code says so explicitly.
The ordinance was adopted as both a conservation measure and a consumer protection measure, and it is enforced by the county’s Consumer Protection Division through a mediation center that takes resident complaints directly.
Two structural points are easy to miss:
- Municipalities can opt in. A municipality operating its own water utility within Miami-Dade may petition the county, by ordinance or resolution, to have the county enforce remetering for its retail customers. Where that has happened, the ordinance’s references to WASD apply to that municipality’s water service instead.
- New construction. Effective January 1, 2009, permit applications for new multifamily residential developments are required to include a submeter for each individual dwelling unit.
Registration
Remetered properties register with Miami-Dade County. A registration application covers a substantial amount of detail, including:
- The property and ownership information, the number of units being remetered, and the remeterer and management company contacts
- A copy of a sample lease or condominium agreement stating that the unit is or may be submetered
- Specifications of the submeters and testing equipment, meeting AWWA standards
- Copies of plumbing and electrical permits, and the signed permit card or other approval for the installed submeters
- The billing start date and a sample bill in the required format
- A comparison report of the owner’s water service charges from WASD against the charges billed to residents for the same period
That last item is the one worth pausing on. The county asks you to demonstrate, on paper, that what you billed residents reconciles against what WASD billed you. A program that cannot produce that comparison cleanly is a program with a problem.
Registrations take effect on approval, changes to the recorded information must be reported within ten days, and renewal applications are due at least 30 days before expiration.
The Registration Belongs to the Property
Registration runs with the property, not with the company that produces the bills. Securing it, keeping the recorded information current, and renewing on time are the owner’s responsibility, and every substantive billing rule in the ordinance applies to the property regardless of who does the billing.
Zero Markup, and Other Prohibited Practices
The ordinance’s prohibited practices section is unusually direct. It is unlawful to:
- Resell water service at a rate or charge exceeding the actual purchase price from WASD. There is no administrative allowance, no percentage adder, no billing fee built into the rate. The ordinance separately states that it is unlawful for owners to make a profit from remetering.
- Engage in the resale of water service without registering.
- Bill individually for water service other than by remetering.
- Submeter only part of a building. No unit may be submetered unless all units in each building served by a master meter are submetered, though a building may be phased over a twelve-month period under a schedule filed with the county. Partial submetering and billing based on a proration of water service is prohibited outright.
- Use submeters to avoid water main extensions or connection charges owed to WASD.
- Place a submeter in service that is not registering in accordance with AWWA specifications.
The no-proration rule deserves emphasis, because it forecloses a workaround owners reach for elsewhere. In Miami-Dade you cannot submeter what is easy and allocate the rest. It is full submetering of the building or nothing.
Billing Requirements
The ordinance specifies both the lease language and the bill format.
In the lease. The sale or rental agreement must clearly state that the unit is or may be submetered, that bills will or may be issued on a submetered basis, and that bills will not include charges for water service for common areas and facilities. The resident initials that provision. The owner also provides a narrative summary prepared by the county explaining remetering, at lease signing. Existing residents must receive notice 90 days before the service is implemented unless notice was already in their agreement.
On the bill. Each resident bill must show the total due for water service and applicable taxes, the due date, the resident’s name and address, the meter reading and the period billed, prior and current readings, total gallons or CCF and how the charge was computed, the name of the company issuing the bill with a contact for disputes, the party to whom payment is made, a statement if the bill was estimated, and the county mediation center phone number.
Other terms. Residents get at least 15 days to pay, with the due date rolling to the next business day if it falls on a weekend or holiday. Late fees cannot exceed 10 percent of the total bill and must be disclosed on the bill. Nothing other than water, sewer, applicable taxes, and a disclosed late fee may be billed.
Disputes. A resident disputes in writing; the owner must investigate promptly and report results in writing within 30 days. If a bill was in error, a corrected bill is issued. Under-billing can be recovered for no more than six months, and if the under-billing is $25 or more, the owner must offer a deferred payment plan for a period as long as the under-billing lasted.
Meter testing. On reasonable written request, the owner must test the accuracy of a resident’s submeter. The resident may observe or send a representative. If the meter tests accurate, a reasonable testing and plumbing charge may be passed to the resident. If it is defective, no charge.
Records. Owners keep the WASD bill, the billing calculation, and all meter readings, resident billings, and meter test results for individual units, for 12 months.
What This Means Operationally
Miami-Dade is not a market where a standard national billing program works out of the box. Three things reliably trip owners up:
- The bill format is prescriptive. A billing platform that cannot produce every required field, including the county mediation center number and the computation of gallons, produces non-compliant bills at scale, every month, in a county whose enforcement runs through a resident complaint channel.
- The zero-markup rule means the water billing cost is an owner expense. Where the PSC has jurisdiction, a Florida reseller may recover the actual cost of meter reading and billing up to 9 percent of the cost of service. Miami-Dade allows no recovery at all on water. One alternative owners use is to recover administrative expense through utilities and services the ordinance does not reach; the remetering ordinance governs water resale specifically, and does not regulate what may be charged for unregulated services billed alongside it. That approach depends on your lease supporting the charge and on the service being genuinely outside the ordinance, so it is worth running past counsel before it goes into a rate sheet. What it should not do is end up inside the water charge.
- The reconciliation has to hold up. The comparison of WASD charges to resident billings is not just a registration formality; it is the evidence that you have not profited, which is the ordinance’s central prohibition.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to register to bill residents for water in Miami-Dade?
Yes. Remetered properties register with Miami-Dade County and must keep that registration current.
Can I charge a billing or administrative fee on water in Miami-Dade?
No. Resale above the actual purchase price from WASD is prohibited, and making a profit from remetering is expressly unlawful. This is stricter than the standard that applies in Florida’s PSC-jurisdictional counties.
Can I submeter only some units in a building?
No. All units in each building served by a master meter must be submetered, though phasing over twelve months under a filed schedule is permitted. Billing based on a proration of water service is prohibited.
Can common-area water be billed to residents?
No. Water and sewer for common areas and facilities, including amenities like pools, is the property owner’s responsibility, and the lease must say so.
What late fee is allowed?
Up to 10 percent of the total bill, and it must be disclosed on the bill.
Getting It Right in Miami-Dade
The ordinance is detailed, but it is not ambiguous. Most compliance failures we see are mechanical: a bill format missing required fields, a fee that should never have been on the bill, a reconciliation nobody can produce on request.
UMS are experts in the Miami-Dade remetering license application process. We work through it proactively with owners and managers, assembling the submeter specifications, permit documentation, sample lease language, bill format, and the WASD-to-resident comparison report the county expects, and we have helped dozens of properties successfully receive their licenses. For owners entering the market, that is usually the difference between a program that starts on schedule and one that stalls in an incomplete application.
With more than 20 years of experience in meter installation and utility billing, UMS builds water submetering systems and resident billing programs around each jurisdiction’s specific requirements, including bill formats, disclosure language, and the documentation that has to exist when someone asks for it. If you own or manage in Miami-Dade and want a review of an existing program, or you are planning a new one, we would like to be in that conversation early.
Get a quote or call 877-934-4346 to speak with an expert.
This article is provided for general information and is not legal advice. Consult counsel regarding your specific properties and lease documents. The county’s remetering ordinance is available in the Miami-Dade County Code, and the county maintains a water remetering information page.