7.25.010 - Short title and purpose.
A.
This chapter may be known and be cited as "Third Party Billing Regulation." The general
purpose of this chapter is to prevent landlords, either themselves or through a third
party billing agent, from billing tenants for master metered or other unmetered utility
services without proper notice and disclosure of billing practices to tenants, and
to protect tenants from deceptive or fraudulent billing practices, and to these ends
the provisions of this chapter shall be liberally construed.
B.
Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to prevent a landlord from including a
tenant's cost of master metered or other unmetered utility services within the rent
set forth in a rental agreement, and the practice of including such cost within a
tenant's rent shall not be considered a billing practice or methodology affected by
the provisions of this chapter.
C.
Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to affect the practices used by Seattle
Public Utilities or Seattle City Light to bill and collect residential multi-unit
building owners or landlords for master metered or other unmetered utility service.
(Ord. 121320 § 1, 2003.)