Information About Late Fees and Disconnect Notices

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Recently, LVMWD implemented changes to their miscellaneous fee structures.

Although these fees do not impact all customers, one important change is to the fees associated with water bills that are severely past due. Most of these specific customers have not paid for service for at least six weeks and are not attempting to resolve the issue.  This fee change will NOT impact the vast majority of LVMWD customers but will affect those customers who do not pay their water bills on time. LVMWD commissioned a study to determine the appropriate amount for the various fee changes to ensure they cover the cost of the services required. LVMWD has been notifying customers of this change for the last two months through social media, the LVMWD website, reminder notices and in Issue 1, 2019 of the Current Flow newsletter.

For more information on the fee changes please visit  our Miscellaneous Fees webpage or call us at 818-251-2200.

 

  1. A customer receives a water bill and has 20 days from the bill date, which is printed on the bill, to make a payment to be considered “on-time.”
  2. On the 21st day a reminder notice is mailed to the customer if LVMWD has not received a payment. This notice will include a 5% late fee and an additional two weeks to pay the bill without any additional penalty fees.
  3. If LVMWD still has not received a payment on their water bill (now at approximately five weeks without any received payment) a disconnect notice (door tag) is delivered to the customer via Fedex.
  4. The disconnect notice (door tag) is the final attempt for LVMWD to remind the customer to pay their water bill because no payment has been received. This disconnect notice (door tag) comes with a $115 penalty fee and a 72-hour shut-off notice of intent.
  5. This new $115 penalty fee off-sets the cost of LVMWD’s field customer service personnel’s time, vehicle operation fees and office processing fees.
  6. A customer has approximately six weeks from the bill date, printed on their bill, to pay their water bill before their water is turned off.

 

Example (the example is meant to demonstrate a typical LVMWD billing procedure.

The dates in the example will change from month to month):

 

An LVMWD customer receives their water bill with a bill date of July 17th (a customer has 20 days from the 17th to pay their water bill with no penalties). In this example, the bill would be due on August 6th with no penalty associated with it.

If a payment has not been received by LVMWD by August 6th, the next day (August 7th) a reminder notice is mailed to the mailing address that LVMWD has on file for the customer with a 5% late fee added to the past due balance.

In this example, a customer who received the reminder notice, mailed on August 7th, will now have a new due date of August 21st to pay their bill to avoid any additional penalty fees.

If no payment has been received by August 21st, a disconnect notice will be delivered to the service address via Fedex the following Monday (in this example) August 26th. Any payment received (in this example) between August 21-25 will be processed and no disconnect notice (door tag), along with the $115 penalty fee, will be delivered to the service address or assessed to the customer’s account.

The disconnect notice  will provide specific instruction to the customer that payment must be received by 5:00pm on August 28th, (in this example) to avoid a water shutoff on Thursday August 29th.

 Holidays will affect the billing schedule. If you are unclear, please call customer service at 818-251-2200.