Water Bills questions and comment
Comments
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I pay £40/month by DD to Anglian Water. I have to wait until April for this to be reduced (see below) but we don't use anything like this.
But the problem is, is that they hold £295 credit on my account. Do I have any right to ask for some or all of this back as its a fair chunk of cash they are sitting on?
Any comments gratefully received!0 -
Welcome to the forum.I pay £40/month by DD to Anglian Water. I have to wait until April for this to be reduced (see below) but we don't use anything like this.
But the problem is, is that they hold £295 credit on my account. Do I have any right to ask for some or all of this back as its a fair chunk of cash they are sitting on?
Any comments gratefully received!
I assume you are metered?
When did you have your last bill based on meter reading?
I pay just over £40 a month and had my last bill in June. If I look at my account now I will be well over £200 in credit - but next month I will have a 6 monthly bill that will use up all my credit and might give me a small debit balance.
Similarly your £295 credit might be the same. If you are certain - from meter readings - that you are paying too much then contact them and they should either reduce your DD or refund some of the credit.
You also have the option not to pay by DD but 6 monthly.0 -
I have just got my Anglian DD recduced from £39 pm to £19 pm by calling their Customer Services.
Moved home 3.5 months ago. First bill was such that it is obvious we are low water users.
You should call them and ask for refund.
I shouldbe paying about £30 pm really but the revised DD will use up the credit balance by the next bill in June.:T0 -
Hi. I contacted Thames Water last year to chance the household bill to be addressed to me (only in my husbands name before- the only bill he did pay- or so i thought!) i was instantly hit with a bill for over £700 in arrears.
I was shocked and upset, and as a newly single parent of 3 with no income, very worried. I contacted them and they said they could send out a payment card so i could pay off bit by bit. Relief. However, this never arrived despite several phone calls and emails. It has now been passed to debt collection- but i have had no information as to what Collection agency or how i start paying. I am worried baliffs will just turn up at door and that fees will be added making it more impossible to pay.0 -
I have just received a demand for payment of £179 from South East Water.
However I was completely unaware there was an outstanding balance.
My understanding of having a water meter is that a direct debit is set up and this automatically adjusts to cover the necessary payments - The same as it does with a gas or electric bill.
Having spoken to the water board today they have said I am on a capped payment plan and so they can only increase it by £5 every 6 months.
This underpayment has been going on for well over a year and I have only been made aware of it this January.
The water board have said it is stated in my yearly bill that the account was in debit.
I have to be honest I don't scrutinise every bill I receive and read every bit of print. But even if I did I still don't think it's that clear.
Looking back at these bills it simply says Account Balance and because it doesn't have a credit (CR) after it I'm suppose to know I owe them more money.
It also says in the last paragraph on the page the following "To help you with this increase, we have set your payments at a lower level than that required" - this isn't bolded text or highlighted in anyway, and the sentence isn't particularly clear - a lower level required of what?
Surely this is an error with the water board, and having a bill capped in this way without telling people about a capped plan doesn't allow someone to address an increase or plan for it instead of just being landed with a large bill.
Has anyone else come across this? I feel this is misleading and something that needs to be addressed by an ombudsman.
I suspect the reason this has happened is probably due to the rebate from claiming back a year's worth of surface water costs due to the property having a soak-away. This resulted in a the account being heavily in credit and only a £4 a month water bill - they were then unable to get up to the correctly amount being used with only being able to increase the direct debit by £5 every 6 months. (this rebate was made over 5 years ago!)
The water board have so far offered to spread the outstanding balance across 12 monthly payments on top of my current water bill. I have rejected this as I feel they are at fault through their billing process and should absorb the costs themselves - I'm currently waiting to hear back from them with their findings.
UPDATE
The water board have come back and offered to wipe off 3/4's of the £179 bill, the remaining amount will be spread over my monthly direct debits - it took some persistence and having to go from one superior to the next, but I eventually got there.0 -
Molkogirl2 wrote: »Hi. I contacted Thames Water last year to chance the household bill to be addressed to me (only in my husbands name before- the only bill he did pay- or so i thought!) i was instantly hit with a bill for over £700 in arrears.
I was shocked and upset, and as a newly single parent of 3 with no income, very worried. I contacted them and they said they could send out a payment card so i could pay off bit by bit. Relief. However, this never arrived despite several phone calls and emails. It has now been passed to debt collection- but i have had no information as to what Collection agency or how i start paying. I am worried baliffs will just turn up at door and that fees will be added making it more impossible to pay.
I can't advise how to sort out your water account, I'm afraid, but since you are worried I wanted to post what I do know to try and set your mind at rest:
Bailiffs only collect Court or Government debt (CCJs, taxes, local government fines etc). Unless this goes all the way to court, and you loose, and you still don't pay it, no one will come knocking.
They may just mean they have passed it to their own debt collection team for them to arrange a payment schedule.
If nothing happens for a while, I'd suggest putting the facts as you see them into writing to Thames, asking for a resolution. That way even if it does come to court (which hopefully it never will) you can demonstrate you've been reasonable from the start.
That said, given that the account was in your husband's name when the charges were incurred, is it possible they've also been in contact with him?3.6 kW PV in the Midlands - 9x Sharp 400W black panels - 6x facing SE and 3x facing SW, Solaredge Optimisers and Inverter. 400W Derril Water (one day). Octopus Flux0 -
Really hoping someone can help me as I'm quite concerned about my water bill. Sorry if my post is a bit lengthy!
Myself, my partner and our daughter moved into a rented 2 bed house on 31/1. I called southern water a week later to set up my account, direct debit etc. I was told our bill would be £51 a month. I set up the dd not thinking much of it, but later thought it seemed a little high.
I spoke to someone on 16/2 about this, and submitted a reading to them of 201. Unfortunately we didn't take a reading on the day we moved in (presumed previous tenant/landlord had done so). Luckily though, we're on an automatic system so the last reading was on 24/1 when the property was empty, the man I spoke to suggested we use this as our starting point - this was a reading of 197. So in 2 weeks we had used 4 units which seemed reasonable. He said he would send this to the billing team to recalculate my bill, as the previous 197 is presumably what the previous tenants have used. He said this recalculation should take a few days.
I received an email yesterday stating that my direct debit has now gone up to almost £65 a month. It states that they have calculated our bill up until 16/2, which would have come to £11.61. With that in mind, I simply cannot fathom where £65 a month has come from? We're really careful with water, I did an online calculator which suggested my bill might come to around £40 a month which seems a lot more reasonable, and a lot more like what we were expecting.
Can anyone make any sense of why my bill has suddenly increased to an extortionate amount? There's only 2 adults here and a baby! We do washing 2/3 times a week, boil the minimum amount of water possible, don't wash cars or water our garden etc! I hope someone can make more sense than I can. Thank you!0 -
Welcome to the forum.Hazelfairy wrote: »Can anyone make any sense of why my bill has suddenly increased to an extortionate amount? There's only 2 adults here and a baby! We do washing 2/3 times a week, boil the minimum amount of water possible, don't wash cars or water our garden etc! I hope someone can make more sense than I can. Thank you!
I suspect that in spite of giving them a start meter reading of 197, the bill has not been re-calculated and you are being charged for the previous occupant's consumption and standing charges.
You need to get hold of the bill and see exactly what are the charges.
Get a letter from your letting agent stating when your tenancy started; also confirmation that they had checked previous occupant had paid their water bill.
I would also cancel your Direct debit until the matter is sorted.0 -
Yes, they do,
Call your supplier and ask about Watersure and Watersure plus, you may be told you need a meter fitted but the government cap is £374.
criteria include:
Means tested benefits,
young children in the house
Low income
Disablity/medical issue needing extra water usage
people over the age of 64 in the house.
its worth a check, and please note this is added moving forward and will not be added retrospectively wether you have asked the company about this before or not,."Always remember, I'm just the other side of the rainbow, or just north of the north star. Whichever is closest." AJM 17/03/75-16/03/970 -
hello sweetheart,
so sorry no one has contacted you about your debt, you must be frantic, firstly phone back and berate them (thinking of a word that doesn't rhyme with ballcock here) for not helping!
go to the thames water page and type in Customer Assistance Fund, its a short form and they can look in to removing/reducing the debt.
good luck
Callie"Always remember, I'm just the other side of the rainbow, or just north of the north star. Whichever is closest." AJM 17/03/75-16/03/970
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