Water Bill Criteria

The Rateable Value(RV) on which your water charges were based ceased to be the basis for 'local taxation' in April 1990(for domestic properties) It was replaced by the Poll Tax and then the present Council Tax.

As you say the RV was based on a notional rent the property would fetch at the last valuation; which for most properties would be 1973 or before 1990 if they were built after 1973.

It is important to note that the RV is nothing to do with Council Tax bands.

The criteria for RV assessment was something of a lottery. It depended on many factors, e.g. location, services, modernisation of property(kitchen bathroom, CH etc) garage.

It might have been that your sisters house at the time of assessment was unmodernised(by 1973 standards) and has since been modernised or extended. I am aware of huge mansions that are now Band H for Council Tax that have a lower RV than a 2 bed semi Band A semi in the same area. The mansion could have been derelict in 1973 and thus impossible to rent.

Anyway the bottom line is there is no mechanism for altering an RV that could have been awarded over 40 years ago. Most councils are not aware of the RV of properties, and even if they were aware there is no way they can change the RV. The water companies also cannot alter an RV.

You can find out the RV of both properties by looking at the old water bills(before metering) It is also possible that your sister has claimed relief from the Surface Water Drainage charge. Are you paying it on your metered bill? and were you paying it on your RV based bill?

The higher direct debit amount was worked out to cover the already calculated annual bill, based on rateable value and the current rates for clean ,used and surface water.

The lower value is an estimate to cover your expected bill using the metered amounts and rates. This figure may or may not cover the bill, so at your first actual reading they will either sort out a lower or higher rate.

There will always be some difference at reading time as there is no way of knowing how much water you will use; just an estimate based on what you tell them you use water for , but circumstances can change , so affecting your water usage (eg long term visitors, a large clean up job, someone leaves home).

We have held off for ages, as I'd wrongly assumed that the charge for sewage and run off was fixed, so the usage amount had a small effect on the total cost, but going on figures for the first few weeks ,we will save (don't know how much as we haven't had a reading ,yet.).