Smart Utility Splitter for Multi-Unit Properties
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Automatically calculates and bills fair utility shares for each unit in duplexes, ADUs, and commercial spaces—no hardware required.
Added Dec 4, 2025
6 signals
The Problem
Property owners and tenants face constant disputes over unfair utility bills in multi-unit properties with shared meters. Tenants routinely overpay for electricity, water, and gas due to manual calculations or landlord estimates, while owners struggle with complex regulations, manual billing processes, and lack of transparency that leads to legal disputes and tenant turnover.
Potential Solution
Detailed solution approach available for premium members.
Why Now?
Market timing analysis available for premium members.
Issues with commercial property manager
Hello! I recently opened a brick and mortar retail storefront and have had issues with the utilities since the day I moved in, and my property manager is being super sketchy about it. TLDR: I'm overpaying for electricity because part of my suite is on a meter split between two separate suites in the same building rented by different tenants, and now my landlord is cutting corners by hiring (what I assume to be) an unlicensed handyman and dragging this out for 4 months now. (Three questions in this post separated by context) For context: When I got my first round of utility bills, I was told that they expected me to split a bill 60/40 (I pay 60%) with a restaurant next door because the restaurant's storage room and part of my suite are on the same meter. I was not informed of this prior to signing my lease(they actually told me everything was separate), and when I told the property manager that I did not intend to pay for electricity that I'm not using, they assured me that the issue would be fixed. When I told them about the massive discrepancy in usage that I was being billed for, they basically said "oh yeah, now that you mention it, that seems a little high for a few lights and a storage room". I'm only open 4 days a week from 12-6, and the restaurant is open 6 days a week from 11-8. Also, the larger part of my suite (separately metered) has double the amount of lights being used during business hours as well as an HVAC unit, but the usage for the split meter bill was almost 7x more than my usage in the larger part of my suite leading me to believe that something in the restaurant that uses a lot of power (like an appliance or something) may also be running on that meter. I brought it to their attention at the beginning of April, but it still hasn't been resolved as of 7/24. Question 1: If I suspect they are hiring an unlicensed "electrician" to take care of this significant electrical issue, is there anything I can do about it? This "electrician" has been in the building multiple times over several weeks, and they still don't know the full extent of the issue, they're just guessing at this point. The first day they were diagnosing the issue, the "electrician" and property manager were just on the phone with each other and one walked around the two suites while the other flipped switches on my breaker panels and said whether or not something turned off. Their first guess was the water heater. Apparently, my bathroom was sharing a water heater with the restaurant and was hooked up to the split meter. Their solution was to install an on demand water heater in my bathroom (which is fine with me), but they haven't disconnected the original water heater from the split meter, they've just added another appliance. They also only come in to work on the electrical issue on Mondays when the restaurant is closed. On the day they were supposed to disconnect the original water heater the "electrician" (who lives an hour away) didn't show up until noon and then the property manager said he could postpone running the new wires through the ceiling until the weather was cooler, because it was "too hot"...at noon...in the middle of July. Question 2: Do I have any rights as a tenant and business owner to insist they hire a legitimate, local electrician to do the job correctly and in a timely manner? I've also discovered through my own investigation, that the lights inside the Plaza sign in front of the building (for all three businesses) as well as a security light on the back side of the building that is on 24/7 are both powered by the split meter. When I brought this to the property manager's attention, they said there are "so many mysteries with the electrical" and that it's getting very expensive to solve this. Question 3: Should I request that the property owner cover the cost of running the outdoor lights? Would it be considered their responsibility because those lights are for the whole building, not one specific business/tenant? And could I ask for reimbursement for the last 4 electricity bills where I paid for this usage? Thanks in advance!
Landlord didn’t split multiple occupancy building
Hi, Any advice or help would be appreciated So we run a limited company business out of 1 unit of a 4 unit building. I have received a bill for business rates for the whole building, I didn’t expect these costs as I was only expecting to pay for my own portion of the building as on the business rate valuation search, it has the separated rooms, although from the older business structure for the building. No other tenant is expected to pay, even though I wasn’t the first person to start leasing a unit in this property. I reached out to the governing body, they let me know the landlord has informed them that I am the company responsible for the whole of the properties business rates and they suggested I speak to the landlord. The landlord informed me they have no idea, and told me to either pay it and recover the money on completion of the split backdated to when the split originally happened (can take up to 12 months for a splitting decision and I don’t have 30,000 to hand out right now and then another £1400+ a month) or ask for a pause on the business rates while the split decision is being made (this isn’t possible as the governing body won’t make any exceptions) Do I have any grounds or what can I do? The landlord informed all 4 of the business that they split the building already, this was 3 years ago for the first tenant and almost 2 years ago for me. - the property is 1 building split into 4 different rooms, with a communal area. Many thanks,
Cost Segregation Study on STR ADU on our property?
My wife and I recently purchased our first home. The property came with an additional dwelling unit that has its own entrance and is seperated from our main house by a breezeway but attached by a shared roof. We listed it on airbnb and vrbo about two months ago and have already had a good amount of stays and several booked in the coming months. My question is if it is possible and a good idea to get a cost segregation on that ADU for tax saving purposes even though its part of our primary residence?
ADU Metering questions
My husband and I are about to finish up construction on our garage to ADU conversion. The unit has an air conditioner, all normal appliances, and a washer/dryer. And we live in Southern California, a coastal desert, that is very comfortable climate-wise most of the year. QUESTION: We are trying to figure out how to meter the main house and the ADU separately for utilities. We would like to avoid having to include them in rent. Does anyone have any insight or experience? Thank you.
How Do Appraisers Treat an Attached ADU?
Hey everyone — hoping to get some clarity from appraisers or people who’ve dealt with this. I have a situation where the ADU is attached to the primary home and fully accessible from inside the house. It has its own bedroom(s), bathroom(s), and kitchen, but if I didn’t explicitly mention it was an ADU, it could basically function as extra living space in the main house. I’m trying to understand how appraisers typically classify this kind of setup. This would be in Southern California and specifically: 1. If the ADU is attached and accessible, will an appraiser add its square footage to the main home’s GLA? Assuming that I remove the stove so it doesn’t look like there’s a kitchen. 2. Do the additional bedrooms and bathrooms from the attached ADU get added into the total bed/bath count of the main home? Same with the sqft? 3. If I don’t explicitly say “this is an ADU,” does an appraiser have any way of knowing it is an ADU? Would they count it as part of the main home? Pulling permits generally take 10 business days in my city, and I don’t think appraiser usually are able to wait for that? 4. Does the tax assessor normally list ADUs as a separate line item or as part of the main home? And is tax assessor what the appraisers look at? Context / why I’m asking: On a previous property, I built a detached 1200sqft ADU and the appraiser basically valued it at ~$100 per sq ft because there are no comparables nearby with ADUs of that size, which was extremely low and honestly burned me. They had just taken comparables of the main home (1000sqft) and added 100k. Homes at 2200sqft were valued more. So now I’m trying to understand how the classification works, especially with an attached ADU, and what typically could lead to a fair (and hopefully higher) appraisal outcome. Would really appreciate insight from anyone familiar with the process. Thanks! edit: I noticed I said I already built it, but this is a hypothetical situation as I'm deciding between building the extra sqft as an ADU or as an addition, so apologies for that.
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