Is there a way i can stop a water meter being fitted?

olly300

purpleneat wrote: »

I live in a very old council house, it has not got it's own water supply - the water for this house is tapped on to the house next door's pipes.

The next door house has been brought and he wants our houses pipes "off his land" as he has put it. This means a new supply being fitted to my house and i have been told we will get a water meter.
Is there a way around this?????
We are a family of 5 (including 2 teenagers and a toddler) it's going to cost us a bomb:eek:

Thanks for reading, Neat x

Out of interest who is paying for the water pipes to be moved?

As lots of houses particularly those build before the second world war have a shared water supply in England.

So some water companies make both home owners pay a lot for the privilege and you can refuse to pay so it isn't done regardless of what the other party wants.

Fire_Fox

purpleneat wrote: »

The next door house has been brought and he wants our houses pipes "off his land" as he has put it. This means a new supply being fitted to my house and i have been told we will get a water meter.
Is there a way around this?????
We are a family of 5 (including 2 teenagers and a toddler) it's going to cost us a bomb:eek:

We are two in a two bedroom flat with a metered supply. Our bills are £20 a quarter - if you multiply that up yours would be £50 a quarter or £17 a month. You just need to be sensible with water: try to avoid long power showers and daily deep baths. I switch the shower off whilst I am shampooing my hair, and use a leave-on conditioner, saves perhaps half the water.

jimbugalee

This may or may not help but I had a bit of a result with the water board yesterday. We recently moved to a new property (you HAVE to have a water meter fitted) so I informed the water people to transfer the account from my flat to the new property. All sorted and a few weeks later we recieved a bill. It showed a fixed monthly cost so I rang up to ask what happens when we get a water meter. They asked if I'd requested one ... not specifically as I assumed they put one on order when I said we were moving. Apparently once they've billed you for a fixed rate they cannot enforce fitting a water meter. So now we don't have to have one WHOOPEE! The lady worked out the cost of meter vs not meter and said it would be the same so better to be unmetered in case we do use more.

I'm not sure this is going to help you so apologies for that but it is a bit of a work around (I hadn't lied or purposely not told them about fitting a water meter).

Cardew

jimbugalee wrote: »

This may or may not help but I had a bit of a result with the water board yesterday. We recently moved to a new property (you HAVE to have a water meter fitted) so I informed the water people to transfer the account from my flat to the new property. All sorted and a few weeks later we recieved a bill. It showed a fixed monthly cost so I rang up to ask what happens when we get a water meter. They asked if I'd requested one ... not specifically as I assumed they put one on order when I said we were moving. Apparently once they've billed you for a fixed rate they cannot enforce fitting a water meter. So now we don't have to have one WHOOPEE! The lady worked out the cost of meter vs not meter and said it would be the same so better to be unmetered in case we do use more.

I'm not sure this is going to help you so apologies for that but it is a bit of a work around (I hadn't lied or purposely not told them about fitting a water meter).

I cannot understand this.

If you are unmetered you have to have your charges based on the Rateable Value(RV) of your property. i.e. If your RV is £200 you pay 200 x £y for water and 200 x £z for sewerage.

Since 1989 no property has been allocated an RV - as the rating system was abolished on that date.

So you cannot transfer your account from one property to another. It is like saying I am paying road tax on a moped and will transfer my account to my new Bentley and pay the same road tax!!!!!

You simply cannot have your charges in the new property based on the RV of your old flat.

Does this new bill state what your RV is?

Very clearly someone has made a mistake.

deanos

You keep the same account number i think thats what they mean , it dosent say they getting charged the same as before

Cardew

deanos wrote: »

You keep the same account number i think thats what they mean , it dosent say they getting charged the same as before

Agreed, that should be the case.


However jimbugalee said: "The lady worked out the cost of meter vs not meter and said it would be the same so better to be unmetered in case we do use more."

That is impossible for her to work out unless the new property has an RV - which it cannot have.

jimbugalee

Sorry if I wasn't clear. We're def not on the same RV as paying £30 instead of £21 per month now. Just instead of closing the flat account they bought the balance over to the new account. I was on a water meter at the flat so don't really know how I skipped it in this property.

Oh now I feel a bit silly saying 'new' property when actually it's old but new to us. That would probably make more sense.

Still think something wrong has happened somewere as it's a bit of a big loophole ....move into a house and don't request a water meter then you don't get one?! But you're meant to ....

Cardew

jimbugalee wrote: »

Still think something wrong has happened somewere as it's a bit of a big loophole ....move into a house and don't request a water meter then you don't get one?! But you're meant to ....

Ah that is different!

The position is that under the Water privatisation Act all water companies can insist that new occupants have a meter fitted.

However some of the companies do not enforce that ruling, whilst other do.

jimbugalee

From what the lady was saying our water company do have to enforce it but they now can't because they've billed us on RV .. they can't go back.

lapat

purpleneat wrote: »

I live in a very old council house, it has not got it's own water supply - the water for this house is tapped on to the house next door's pipes.

The next door house has been brought and he wants our houses pipes "off his land" as he has put it. This means a new supply being fitted to my house and i have been told we will get a water meter.
Is there a way around this?????
We are a family of 5 (including 2 teenagers and a toddler) it's going to cost us a bomb:eek:

Thanks for reading, Neat x

lets get back to the original request here. im presuming your council house is a semi detached house. if so 99% of these older style houses were fed from what is known as a common supply pipe. now heres the issue he may have bought the house but if he wants you off that supply its him that has to lay a new supply out to his property. you dont have to do anything unless you have tapped into his supply illegally after the houses were built and in this case this i highley unlikey. as for the meter you need to look into this a bit better but in effect you are laying a replacement pipe out not a new supply as you are already supplied with water and billed for that. so a new meter is highly unlikely.