(a) All fees and charges for fire protection service shall be billed and collected by the city and shall not be pro-rated for less than 30 days. The city shall be charged with the duty of mailing a statement to each owner to be charged the fee as hereby imposed, but failure to mail any statement for charges shall not be grounds for avoiding payment.
(b) Charges for the fire protection service may be billed on a monthly basis by the city and all charges shall be billed in advance of the services being rendered.
(c) To avoid the late payment penalty imposed by division (e) below, payment for any fire protection service fee imposed by this article shall be paid within 20 days of the date of the bill for services mailed.
(d) For the purpose of multi-family buildings and nonresidential unit structures that are subject to a written lease agreement, the fire fee thereon shall be considered a utility as may be defined in said lease agreement.
(e) Any charge for service remaining unpaid 20 days after the billing date shall be deemed delinquent and a late payment penalty of 10% of the unpaid charge for that billing period shall be assessed. In the event that any delinquent charge remains unpaid for 12 months, an additional penalty equal to interest at the rate of 10% per annum of the billing shall be assessed.