The Public Utility Commission of Texas regulates the state's electric, telecommunication, and water and sewer utilities, implements respective legislation, and provides customer assistance in resolving consumer complaints.
This page contains a description and explanation of submetered and allocated utility billing. The Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) writes and adopts rules to govern billing practices for water and sewer utility services provided by property owners to tenants (or by condominium associations to members).
Under both of these billing methods, the local public utility measures water use for the whole property at a "master" meter and then bills the property owner based on the master meter reading. Then:
The charges billed by the owner are based on the bill received from the public utility for water and sewer services provided to the owner.
Owners of the following types of properties are allowed to bill their tenants for the actual cost of water or sewer service provided by the local utility:
Owners who submeter or allocate utility bills must follow PUCT rules. These owners must also file a Registration of Submetered or Allocated Utility Service Form for each property where tenants are billed.
The PUCT has camera-ready copies of the rules and related publications available for owners to reproduce and distribute to their tenants. Each of these items is available in PDF format by clicking on the links in the following list.
Questions or requests for additional information may be sent to us at licensing.compliance@puc.texas.gov. To help speed up our response time, please be as specific as possible. Include the entity names and numbers for the items in question. Please provide your name, address, phone number and the best way to contact you. You may also call our Licensing and Compliance group at 512-936-7000.
DUO is committed to help retail water and sewer public utilities to understand, navigate and achieve regulatory compliance with the PUCT.