Unfortunately, this is a complicated question to answer...
The Short Answer: the owner is responsible for water, sewer, and garbage removal, as all three are on the Unified Utility Statement issued by the City of Chicago.
The Long Answer: If you purchased a property from Elite Invest, LLC, the water bill was built into you cash flow analysis.
It is customary in Chicago for landlords to handle the water, sewer, and garbage bill on the Unified Utility Statement issued by the city of Chicago. Tenants do not have the ability to put this bill in their name, the account ONLY transfers when the property is sold. This means, if you require a tenant to pay this bill and they do not, it could 1) impact your credit and 2) a lien could be placed on the property by the city. You cannot sell the property with an outstanding water bill/lien, and generally speaking most owners would not want to entrust a tenant with a responsibility that could impact their title.
Chicago’s Water: A Public Resource
The control and billing for utilities in the United States varies greatly from state to state and city to city. In Chicago, utilities are all in the hands of private entities with the sole exception of the water & sewer systems. The Chicago Water Department handles the actual supply of water to the city’s residents.
Metering, Unpaid Water Bills and Property Values
Now that we’ve explained a little about the water system let’s take a look at some of the laws that will challenge you in your attempts to bill your tenant for water. First and foremost, each property in Chicago gets its own water account, but only one account per lot. This means that multi-unit buildings will normally only have one account handling the entire complex, or at most one per city lot.
Penalties for unpaid water bills can hit home in ways far more gruesome than an unpaid gas bill or electric bill. People’s Gas and ComEd can cut your power and ding your credit report if you don’t pay your bill. The accounts can follow the tenant from location to location, as they’re associated with the payer’s social security number. The water account is associated with your property’s tax ID number, and runs with the property itself, passing from owner to owner with the title. The water department requires proof that the building’s account is paid in full before it can be sold to a new owner. An unpaid bill means that you cannot sell your property until you pay up.
The City’s stance on Water
Normally, if the Chicago Landlord Tenant Ordinance conflicts with a state law, the Chicago ordinance wins. For the most part, the ordinance is silent about the issue of water billing. However, it says that if the landlord fails to provide running hot and cold water, the property is not reasonably fit and habitable and the tenant has the right to demand in writing that the landlord remedy the situation within 14 days.
You’re also required to provide copies of any utility shut-off notices from the past 12 months to a new tenant before they sign the lease. This means you really want to be able to receive those notices as they arrive. In other words, the bill should probably be going where you can keep an eye on it.
As for the other city department with a say in the matter – the water department itself – a verbatim quote from their website:
"Can a tenant have the water bill put in their name?
A property owner may request that water bills be sent in the name of a tenant, however, this does not relieve the owner of the subject property from liability for unpaid water and sewer charges. Please complete a Change of Owner Name/Mailing Address Form to include the tenants name in the mailing address."