The Hawaiian Electric Company(HECO) has left a Waianac-based couple dumbfounded at the end of January charging them with a whopping $18,000 for their electric bill, claiming they’re legal owners of the street and therefore responsible for the outstanding balance.
According to HECO, Desha-Ann and Rashann Kealoha were responsible for paying for their neighborhood streetlights as they are the legal owners of the street and they, therefore, need to pay the outstanding balance of $17,860.09, which is now over $18,000 due to several years of unpaid invoices.
The streetlights allegedly belonging to the couple have been powered for several years without any payment from the Kealoha couple to the company, yet HECO provided documentation showing its claim.
Initially, HECO believed that the street where the Kealoha couple lives had been dedicated to the City & County of Honolulu but the City denied that in a correspondence dated Nov. 16, 2020.
The review that HECO made afterward allegedly shows that several of the accounts on that street did not have an existing customer and that one such account relates to the streetlights within the Kealoha couple’s street at Halemaluhia Place.
Stressing how shocked, overwhelmed, and confused she was after getting the bill, Desha-Ann Kealoha Desha-Ann said she has never before heard about her and her husband owning the lights and she immediately reached out to her realtor, who contacted the escrow office.
According to her, nowhere in their mortgage documents does it say that they signed to purchase the whole street, which HECO treats as a private road.
She’s hopeful that there is some solution to this problem and although Hawaiian Electric said they do not expect the couple to pay the balance, the company underscored they need to determine who owns the street where the streetlights are located so that the five-figure bill can be paid.
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