The chairman of the City Council Finance Committee charged yesterday that legislators got snookered when they agreed in 2007 to allow the Department of Environmental Protection to sell liens when small-property owners don’t pay their water bills.

“My recollection is when you were asking for these stand-alone water-lien sales, this was going to be the panacea that was going to prevent these double-digit water-rate hikes,” Councilman David Weprin (D-Queens) told acting DEP Commissioner Steve Lawitts at a hearing.