State Department of Community Affairs issues cease-and-desist order.
By: Jill Matthews
PLAINSBORO After being issued a cease-and-desist order by the state Department of Community Affairs, the owners of the Fox Run Apartment complex in the township have agreed to stop billing residents for heat by using a submetering system at least for now.
In a letter dated Sept. 9, state Bureau of Housing Inspection Chief Mark Botsko sent a cease-and-desist letter to the company because the inspection department had "not approved the indirect apportionment of heat" for the Fox Run Apartments. Mr. Botsko warned that the company would be fined if it did not stop using this method of billing.
The Bureau of Housing Inspection is part of the DCA’s Division of Codes and Standards.
A representative for the apartment owner, Colorado-based Apartment Investment and Management Company, said the company stopped billing clients under the submetering method which charges tenants of a building for their proportionate use of a utility after it was issued the order in September.
Judy Stowell, AIMCO spokeswoman, said submetering is a legal process and that her company thought it had received permission from the DCA to bill residents under that process.
Ms. Stowell said AIMCO had previously submitted an application to the DCA to allow it to do submetering, and thought its application had been approved. She could not provide a date or timeframe when the company had submitted the application.
She said there was some kind of miscommunication between AIMCO and the DCA and that a "letter or something" got lost in the process.
"We thought everything was fine and that’s why we went ahead and did this," said Ms. Stowell.
E.J. Miranda, a spokeman from the DCA, said that without a more specific date, he would be unable to locate any records regarding an original AIMCO application. But he did say the company had applied on Sept. 21 for approval of a submetering system.
The AIMCO application is currently under review, he said. If approved, AIMCO is required to submit three months’ of bills for review so the DCA can determine that the system is working properly and that the bills fairly represent the relative amount of heat used by each tenant, Mr. Miranda said.
Mr. Miranda said AIMCO has not been fined for its violations because it complied with the cease-and-desist order.