Get a rebate on your sewerage rates charges

well thanks for this thread I just submitted a query through the welsh water website, will let you know what happens...

My house was built around 1950 but our village didn't have mains drainage untill 1973 so would that mean that the gutters etc go into a soakaway? The drainpipes haven't been altered at all.

free_water wrote: »

Correct me if I am wrong but you are the man(a builder) who took on the water company about the water supplied to your swimming pool and fish pond.

You(understandably) objected to paying the drainage element on the metered water to fill the pond and swimming pool on the grounds that that water will not be returned through the sewerage system.

However your situation is unusual in that most people don’t have swimming pools and artificial ponds.

I also think that you should declare an interest in that you are now selling meters for those in your situation or who use large amounts of water in their garden/washing cars etc.

Whilst I applaud you for your stance; I suggest that the average user will need to use huge amounts of water for the garden etc to recoup the high cost of buying your meter; bearing in mind that the water companies give an allowance for water not returned to the sewer.

However above all on this forum you must declare if you are selling products; which you are!!!

I know that water companies always say that they are not legally required to divide the sewerage charge into surface water and foul sewerage hence they only give back one year, or some 6 years on a new property but I wonder if they were forced to backdate rebates whether they would go back to just one sewerage charge.

It would be interesting to see

David_B_Ball wrote: »

I have made a successful claim but I only got a rebate only back for the year in which I made the claim (2006). Thames Water say that the Director General of Water Supplies agreed with the water companies that this was the way any rebate would be applied . That is you have to claim to get it and they have been charging since 1 Apr 2001.

However, Thames Water awarded my rebate without me filling in the form - in fact after 2 attempts the form never came and when I complained about that they gave me the rebate saying that they knew I had soak-aways already! I have complained and asked for the rebate to be backdated to 1 Apr 01. Lord knows how many people they are charging when they know that soak-aways are on the property.

Martin can you investigate and put this subject on the box?

David Ball

Welcome to the forum.

There is quite a bit on that subject in this thread, particularly from post #137 on page 7 onward.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=102012&page=8

Below is an extract from one post.

As I have said earlier in this thread, and in many other threads on this forum, the charging procedure for Surface Water Drainage(SWD) is a nonsense. Not least that there is no publicity about the possible relief from the charge.

If, as in your Father’s case, the practise of re-imposing the charge for new occupants is widespread rather than an error, it is a disgrace.

Your(valid) criticisms in the quote above have been voiced many times. Generally the problem is not proving you have a soakaway, but rather that many people are simply unaware that they do not need to pay that charge.

We should be clear on one thing however. The Regulator controls prices and profits for all the Water Supply companies. If all those entitled, claimed relief from that charge, the other water charges would go up to compensate. So in some ways it is of little concern to the Water Companies if they get their income from Surface Water Drainage or an increase in other charges.

So in that respect your analogy to refunds for excessive bank charges(which led to excess profits) being backdated does not hold water(pun intended). In defence of the Water Companies(which doesn’t come easy to me) the charging structure was imposed upon them by the government regulations when the industry was deregulated. That presumably is why OFWAT do not favour backdating refunds. If they did backdate them, where would the money come from? Obviously in increased charges – robbing customer Peter to pay customer Paul.

There is no way for Water Companies to determine which properties should not pay SWD. So the answer IMO is to scrap that charge for everyone and spread the lost revenue across the whole customer base.