By Vernon Robison

Moapa Valley Progress

The Moapa Valley Water District (MVWD) Board of Directors made another change to district policy regarding delinquent accounts at a meeting held Thursday, June 9 in Overton. The policy change instructs district staff to effectuate a lien against properties that are found delinquent in payment for water service more than six months.

“I like the way this all comes together,” said Board Member Randy Tobler who has pushed in recent months for a series of policy changes regarding delinquent accounts. “It isn’t perfect but it is much better than before. I think that it takes a lot of the shock factor out of it and addresses concerns we’ve heard from realtors and homeowners in the community.”

The action was the last in a series of policy changes to clean up problems in how the MVWD deals with delinquent accounts.

The first of the changes happened last fall when the board revised district policies in assessing late fees to bills. At that time a 10% late fee was charged on delinquent bills. But rather than adding 10% of the new balance, the fee was compounded each month over the entire balance. In the case of abandoned properties, this often added up to a large sum of money, sometimes exceeding the cost of installing a new meter to the property. Last year, the former MVWD board revised the policy to only charge the 10% late fee on the new balance.

The next board action occurred last month when the board changed MVWD practices in removing water service infrastructure from delinquent properties.

It had been the practice of the district to remove the water meter and other infrastructure from properties that were found over 24 months past due in payment. This was done to prevent the overdue balance from becoming too excessive. But it also brought a surprise to a new buyer of the property who, after purchasing the property, might find it had no water service and was subject to full hookup fees.

Last month, the board instructed MVWD staff to stop removing infrastructure in these situations until a more definitive solution could be found to deal with delinquent accounts.

That more definitive solution came before the board at last Thursday’s meeting.

MVWD attorney Byron Mills explained that the whole problem stemmed from some vague language in the law regarding liens on properties. Mills explained that the act which originally created the MVWD was very generic in its language, giving no specifically stated powers to the district to effect a lien. In recent years, this had been interpreted to mean that the district could not place a lien on a property to recover delinquent balances, Mills said.

The previous policies had, thus, all arisen in an attempt to find a way to collect balances on delinquent accounts without the use of a lien, Mills said.

But the Act establishing the district does state, in broad terms, that the MVWD could do whatever is necessary to best serve the needs of the district, Mills said. This could also be interpreted to include recording liens on properties where necessary, he explained.

Mills recommended that the MVWD should place perpetual liens on properties. The perpetual lien would allow for the ongoing balance on the account to continue accruing on the lien until the balance was finally paid.

“That way when a prospective new buyer of an abandoned property comes in and does a title search, they are notified of the lien right there up front,” Mills said. “They will know about it going in and there won’t be any surprises like we have had in the past.”

“In my mind this solves the problem,” said Tobler.

Board member Lindsey Dalley felt it important that the public recognize that this policy change was not a “hard core move” by the board. “It is just the final step in solving what has been an ongoing problem,” Dalley said. “We have reduced penalties. We have taken the surprise factor out of buying a home. And we have made it so we can stop ripping the meters out of the homes.”

“I think that this policy will be fully accepted by the public with open arms,” said Board Chairman Ken Staton.