As a new first time home owner, if you just received your first Los…

As a new first time home owner, if you just received your first Los Angeles Department of Water & Power Bill (LA DWP), it should now cause you to get a Myocardial Infarcton you should just laugh it off and call the LA DWP first thing in the morning.

Keeping in mind no matter how good an advice I give, not everyone listens when they should… the buyer could not sleep all night emailed me her invoice. Clearly $3,146.27 for a two week period of time is a mistake. I have had clients who had seven thousand square feet of living space with half an acre of land and their monthly bill was under $800. I suggested to her to call the LA DWP in the morning and not stress, clearly this is a mistake.

She in turn emailed me about  previous errors that DWP had on the News in November 2013  as they were switching over to a new computer program/system and they have caused many new home owners as well as existing home owners some stress i.e.: about 70,000 people were affected by it. See link http://abc7.com/archive/9342447/  .

Needless to say I reassured her, that those problems were fixed. This must be clearly a human error. 

First thing in the morning she did call LA DWP and needless to say after a 35 minute stressful wait she did get a person to help. Manually she had to read the meter and it became evident that the person who was to read the meter at the change of ownership did not do his or her job. The problem was corrected in twenty minutes due to her not being familiar with where the meters were for water as well as electricity.

The bottom line was within a few days a new bill was to be sent to the new home owner for $183.32.

So from this experience I would like to recommend to all home owners especially the new owners:

1.      1.   Do not put LA DWP on automatic payment from your Bank Account

2.      2.   When you take the keys from the previous owner ask them to show you where the water and electric meters are (provided the owner is there) if not have the listing agent point them out.

3.       3.  Then read the meter and call in to DWP with the figures.

4.       4.  Lastly do not stress errors will happen and will get rectified.

      If you would have received this bill & or the call from you client what would you have done?

If you are a consumer who is considering buying or selling a home, investment real estate, vacation homes, or beach properties in Southern California, Los Angeles, Century City, Westwood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Playa Vista, Marina Del Rey, Venice or Malibu. Feel Free to give me a call at 310.486.1002 or email me at homes@endrebarath.com or visit one of my websites at https://www.endrebarath.com Your Pet Friendly Realtor. I contribute a portion of my commission to Local Animal Rescue Organizations.