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CUC eyes extending grace period for overdue bills
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Posted on Jul 26 2004
Commonwealth Utilities Corp. customers who have overdue power bills would be given additional days of reprieve under the proposed amendments to CUC’s electric service regulations.
According to the proposed amendments, which were published in the latest issue of the Commonwealth Register, bills will only start incurring a 1-percent late charge 30 days after their due date, instead of right after they become due.
“All bills that remain unpaid for 30 calendar days after the billing date will incur a 1-percent late charge. This charge becomes part of the balance due. Thereafter, late charges on the past due balance accrue at the rate of 1 percent per month, compounded monthly,” a portion of the proposed amendments read.
The proposal aims to implement new regulations that were approved by the CUC board of directors, upon the recommendation of the Operations Committee, during its regular meeting on April 7, 2004. It comes with a set of other amendments that will “address customers’ and corporation’s concerns” regarding CUC rules on line extensions and extensions of service.
The proposed regulations seek to allow CUC to impose a moratorium on providing new service to customers or upgrading service to existing customers “if CUC determines that such new service would overburden the existing distribution or generation capacity.”
A customer who violates the conditions of the moratorium would be subject to disconnection.
“CUC’s planned extension of electrical distribution lines is contingent upon the availability of funds identified by CUC for expansion purposes,” the agency added in the proposal. “CUC has discretion to determine where and when distribution lines shall be extended.”
The customer will have to foot the bill if he wants a CUC power distribution line extension to a place that is not part of CUC’s planned expansion area.
Further, all line extensions would be made only after the customer makes an advance payment to CUC of the estimated installation cost that is in excess of CUC base cost, plus the free extension allowance.
