CUC board wants policy for changes on deceased accounts

The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board wants CUC management to draft a policy regarding a name change for accounts of deceased names for a simpler and smoother operation for new customers using previous accounts of past users.

CUC board member Joe Torres asked CUC executive director Alan Fletcher during last week’s board meeting if there was any draft policy for deceased names. CUC legal counsel James Sirok said that they had no policy yet.

CUC board chair Dave Sablan Jr. said that supporting documents and a death certificate is required by CUC customers for change of names, and said that Torres suggested that the process should be a more simple process because of the situation of changing of name being complicated now.

“A death certificate and a letter of the applicant should state that they will be responsible for the billings for meter, should be enough to transfer the name, but not the past dues,” Sablan said.

Torres said that the simpler the policy, the better the changing of names will run through, so there won’t be any confusion.

Sablan said that CUC should prioritize the transition of new customers, so that they could clean out the records of CUC’s accounts of deceased individuals that are still listed as active.

“CUC needs to let the new customers using previous accounts and make the change accordingly,” he said.

Fletcher said that they have tried to collect before the name changes occurred, but there were times when property ownerships changed from one family to another causing difficulty.

“It is complicated on the legal side to go through all that on whose responsibility is it? Who’s going to pay the outstanding raters and bill?” he said.

Torres said that if they keep doing what CUC is doing now, it will pile up and then CUC will have to put a stop on the collection of the payments.

After the board meeting, Fletcher told Saipan Tribune that they will follow through with the policy to make sure that a smoother operation.

“We do have some legal processing that we have to meet, as with all our policies, and that’s when we decide,” Fletcher said.

Sablan said that customers could turn the issue around and say that they are not the ones responsible for the previous deceased accounts, and that the policy should be CUC’s main priority at the moment.