A. This chapter may be known and cited as the “third party billing regulation” chapter. 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. (Ord. 6084 § 1, 2007.)