The Greenville Municipal Authority amended a resolution Friday that had held landlords solely responsible for tenants' water and sewer bills.

The change makes landlords and tenants jointly and separately responsible for the bills.

Under the resolution, in order to set up water and sewer service to a residence in the authority's service area, the owner of the residence is required to enter into a contract with the authority. If the residence is occupied by a tenant, the resolution says, the tenant must also sign the contract.

"The owner and tenant shall be jointly and severally liable for water and sewer utilities service bills," the resolution reads.

When service is set up, the landlord and renter must "certify what address the utility bill shall be sent to, and the mailing of the bill to that address shall be deemed notice to both the owner and the tenant," the resolution says.

The amendment also does away with deposits for tenants' water and sewer service.

A $50 deposit to the municipal authority and a $35 deposit to the sanitary authority had been required for water service to be set up.

Some landlords had threatened to sue after the authority adopted a resolution last year holding landlords solely responsible for the bills.

The authority passed the resolution after discovering that 90 percent of delinquent water users are renters.