Senate Bill No. 723
(By Senators McCabe, Bailey, Love, Barnes, Caruth,
Lanham, Sprouse and Facemyer)
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[Introduced February 20, 2006; referred to the Committee
on the Judiciary.]
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A BILL to amend the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, by
adding thereto a new section, designated §24-3-10, relating to
the termination of water services for delinquent sewer bills.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, be amended
by adding thereto a new section, designated §24-3-10, to read as
follows:
ARTICLE 3. DUTIES AND PRIVILEGES OF PUBLIC UTILITIES SUBJECT TO
REGULATIONS OF COMMISSION.
§24-3-10. Termination of water services for delinquent sewer
bills.
In the event that any publicly or privately owned utility,
city, incorporated town, municipal corporation or public services
district owns and operates separately either water facility or
sewer facilities, and a homeowners association owns and operates the other kind of facilities, either water or sewer, as the case
may be, then the homeowners association and the publicly or
privately owned utility, city, incorporated town, municipal
corporation or public services district shall covenant and contract
with each other to shut off and discontinue the supplying of water
service for the nonpayment of sewer service fees and charges.
Any contracts entered into by a homeowners association
pursuant to this section shall be submitted to the Public Service
Commission for approval. Any homeowners association providing
water and sewer service to its customers has a right to terminate
water service for delinquency in payment of either water or sewer
bills. Where a homeowners association is providing sewer service
and another utility is providing water service, and the homeowners
association experiences a delinquency in payment, the utility
providing water service, upon the request of the homeowners
association, shall terminate its water service to the customer
having the delinquent sewer account. Any termination of water
service must comply with all rules and orders of the Public Service
Commission.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to add a new section
allowing for the termination of water service for delinquent sewer
bills where the sewer service is provided by a homeowners
association.
§24-3-10 is new; therefore, strike-throughs and underscoring have been omitted.