ATLANTA — A man trying to sell his elderly father’s Atlanta home was shocked to learn there was a $56,000 water bill attached to it, according to our sister station WSB-2.
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The Atlanta Watershed agreed to a $20,000 adjustment on the water bill and said by law that was all they could do because they can only make adjustments going back 1 year, WSB-2 consumer investigator Justin Gray confirmed.
“It was shocking. I’d never seen a bill for $56,000,” homeowner Carroll Jefferson said.
As reported on News Center 7 at 5:30, Jefferson said he had to get his elderly father out of this southeast Atlanta home and into a nursing home after a series of falls.
“We had to sell immediately and then sort it out after the fact,” Jefferson said.
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Once Jefferson started asking questions, Atlanta Watershed agreed to a $20,000 water bill adjustment, writing, “The Atlanta City Code provides that this adjustment be calculated as the difference between your billed usage and your actual or normal usage.”
“As you can see by the house behind me. There’s no pool there. So how did this bill get to be $56,000?” Jefferson told Gray. “I know my father paid his bills.”
As for the Jeffersons, Atlanta Watershed said:
“The customer contacted the Department of Watershed Management (DWM) to inquire about a significant increase in their water usage in February 2022. DWM inspected the meter and found a pattern of water flow that indicates a leak on the customer’s side in March 2022.
“In light of this, DWM conducted a follow-up inspection at the customer’s request and confirmed the meter was functioning properly, reiterating that the pattern of water flow indicated a leak on the customer’s property. In June 2022, DWM generated a work order following an extremely high consumption reading and notified the customer again about the suspected leak.
“In April 2024, the customer requested a bill adjustment covering March 2022 to February 2024. In response, The Appeals Board granted an adjustment from March 2023 to March 2024.”
WSB-2 reports that the Jeffersons sold the house and paid the lien from Atlanta Watershed for $35,000 at closing out of the proceeds -- money that was supposed to go to pay for his father’s care.
“If it had been a pool, an Olympic-sized pool, or maybe even three pools. I can understand $56,000. But there’s no pool here. This house only had one bathroom and one kitchen,” Jefferson said.
The city said its hands were tied on the adjustment. By city code, they took that $20,000 from the previous year’s bill but could not go back beyond that to the previous year.
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