Many of you have been receiving and installing your latest Avitar Assessing update. We want to let you know about two things regarding the MS-1 Report: a problem (that should affect only a small percentage of you and for which we have a solution) and a recommendation.

First, the problem. If you have more than three Gas Utilities and/or more than four Water Utilities that are reported under the Utilities Summary (DRA MS-1 PDF, pages 4-5) the system is exporting the wrong assessment values in the XML file for the utilities that, due to a limited number of possible entries, need to be grouped together on the final line of each subsection. For reference, the corresponding Gas and Water Utility subsections are pictured below.

MS-1 Gas Utilities Subsection – page 4

MS-1 Water Utilities Subsection – page 4-5

A few things to keep in mind:

• This only affects your MS-1 if you have more than three Gas Utilities and/or more than four Water Utilities.
• The system groups utilities by owner name so if you have four parcels owned by National Gas Conglomerate but the owner name on each parcel is “NATIONAL GAS CONGLOMERATE” (i.e. spelled the same so the system can group them together) then for the purposes of the MS-1 Report you only effectively have one Gas Utility so you will not be affected.
• If you think this may affect you, review the corresponding parts of the PDF version of the MS-1 report (pictured above) and if the name displayed on the last line in each subsection is “Others” then you will need to call us.
• If you compare the utilities subsections between the system generated MS-1 report and the PDF you populated by importing the XML file output by the system and those sections are identical then you do not need to call us.

So hopefully this affects a very few of you, but we apologize nonetheless for the error. If you are one of the unlucky few just call us at your first opportunity and we’ll get you an update in five minutes or less.

Lastly, the recommendation. In a previous post we reviewed the steps you’ll need to take in preparing and submitting your MS-1. We suggested that you sign everything and keep it in a safe place and then submit the MS-1 to DRA electronically using the button in the PDF. It’s probably a good idea to also send DRA a paper copy of the signed MS-1 Report that was generated by the Avitar system just so they have it for reference in the event there are any questions.

So call us if you need a fix for the Utilities Summary and we’ll update your system. And we apologize for any inconvenience or extra work or dread this has caused.

Thanks.