Water Bills questions and comment

Cardew

wideboy1 wrote: »

hi all sorry if this is in the wrong place but i need some help with the cost of my water bill.

my mums has the same cost of house to mine she has a 2 bed house in a are of coventry and i live in a 2 bed flat in a diffrent area of coventry and she pays £120 water rates and i pay £273.92 for mine.

our houses are both rented and if we were to buy them mine would cost about £5000 more thats it, i have rang the water borad before and asked them why mine is more and i was told it goes on the value of out homes. is this right and how can i clallange the water bill as mine is so much more.

thanks guys

I assume you neither of you are on a meter?

Water charges for unmetered properties depend solely on the Rateable Value(RV) of your property.

If you do a search on this water section you will find lots of information on this.
Essentially the RV system was the way 'local taxes' were assessed before the current Council Tax band system came into operation. The RV system finished in 1990.

The important thing to note is that the RV of your property is not connected to the value of your property. So if you are paying more it is because your flat has a higher RV than your Mother's house.

kimmywal

How long does it take for the water board to get in touch re a water meter, I applied on uswitch and was told that I would be sent a hippo thing to put in toilet and paper work re fitting a free water meter. I hope I am posting this in the right place, Im fairly new to this site.

DJ1UK

Not sure nowadays, last year it took up to 3 months to install a meter where I live.

Why not give the company a call?

DJ

Fight4right_3

I am very new to this so I hope this works. I was asked to submit this information by the MSE team.

I have found out that some families of 3 and more children are being charged phenominal amounts for water and as a result are reducing the amount of usage in an attempt to save money.

A few weeks ago, it came to my attention that SEVERN TRENT will cap water meters off at £270/year if you have 3 or more children AND are on benefits. The water companies DO NOT advertise this and you have to push it. I now know this is definately the case. A close friend put it to the test and had her bills reduced from £55/month to £27/month. Now she attempting gain monies back from the previous year.
I am sure if Severn Trent do this other water providers must as well

shanejosephdonnelly

I've just went through USwitch and calculated my average water bill.
USwitch says my water usage is low and it should be: we don't have a washing machine or a dishwasher and we only ever use the shower! We also have a water-saving device in the toilet cistern. I was estimated £220 (and that was putting my water usage higher than it usually is)
We (two very tight-fisted students) live in a two-bedroom flat on the 1st floor. There is another 1 bedroom flat above us and downstairs is a secretaries office for a doctors surgery. There's a basement/waiting room somewhere down there too where patients for the surgery will sit.
My question for the board is: is our bill of £49 per month (from January) slightly excessive? This is only for our flat and I think that much is a bit too high considering what we use.
Another question I have about living in a flat is whether or not the drainage/sewerage bill is shared across the whole house or if we have got to pay the sewerage separately (ie: 3 sewerage bills for 1 sewerage system)?
Also, I read on one of these pages that it is the responsibility of the landlord to pay water rates. Does anyone know the law on this? I know we would have to pay OUR SHARE of that water bill, but I don't think that Northumbrian water are right to make us have to pay £500 a year!
There you go, three questions: one post. I am really thankful to any help you can give me! I'll update this post if I find out anything new!
Much thanks, Shane and Lisa x

Cardew

ShaneJosephDonnelly wrote: »

I've just went through USwitch and calculated my average water bill.
USwitch says my water usage is low and it should be: we don't have a washing machine or a dishwasher and we only ever use the shower! We also have a water-saving device in the toilet cistern. I was estimated £220 (and that was putting my water usage higher than it usually is)
We (two very tight-fisted students) live in a two-bedroom flat on the 1st floor. There is another 1 bedroom flat above us and downstairs is a secretaries office for a doctors surgery. There's a basement/waiting room somewhere down there too where patients for the surgery will sit.
My question for the board is: is our bill of £49 per month (from January) slightly excessive? This is only for our flat and I think that much is a bit too high considering what we use.
Another question I have about living in a flat is whether or not the drainage/sewerage bill is shared across the whole house or if we have got to pay the sewerage separately (ie: 3 sewerage bills for 1 sewerage system)?
Also, I read on one of these pages that it is the responsibility of the landlord to pay water rates. Does anyone know the law on this? I know we would have to pay OUR SHARE of that water bill, but I don't think that Northumbrian water are right to make us have to pay £500 a year!
There you go, three questions: one post. I am really thankful to any help you can give me! I'll update this post if I find out anything new!
Much thanks, Shane and Lisa x

You don't say if you are metered or not; but I assume you are not??

£49 a month is very high - too high!, and that is probably(certainly) because your flat has a high Rateable Value(RV).

It is possible that your flat has(incorrectly) been given the RV for the whole house. This is because there was no mechanism to re-assess RVs for conversions completed after 1990(when the RV system finished), so all properties in the house could be paying bills based on the original RV where only one should be. Or you could be the only one paying.

You can get a meter fitted free, and if it is not feasible to fit one, you will get an assessed charge which will be much lower than £500pa.

There is no set rule about who is responsible for water bills, it depends on your rental agreement. If the account remains in the landlord's name he is responsible, but of course he can recover the money from you.

I'mcomingbackasaman

I've received a new bill for this financial year 2007/2008. I am unmetered.

The breakdown is Water = £133.08; Sewerage = 222.13 Total Cost £402.21

I've just been on Uswitch and I'd save £100 so sounds good to me

Has anyone whose with United Utilities gone onto a Water meter and found it beneficial ???

moggy

hello everyone,
i have recently moved to a 30 yr old house on the wirral,2 bed semi detatched,i am on the end of the road,i have just had the first bill come in@£477pa,i have checked with other people along the road what they are paying,and most of the houses are paying £300pa,i have checked with the water company and they say its the rateable value,but we all live in the same size houses,please help.
water meter saves only £20pa(ofwat)!!

Chris_Quartly

I just received a bill for the last 6-months, there are two of us living in a small 1-bed house and the bill was £88, from the looks of the bill I think we're on a meter (I'm not entirely sure to be honest!) as it doesn't say it's estimated at all.

I wasn't sure if this was high or not considering I'm pretty good about saving water (my wife possibly less so, however) but from reading some of the bills on here recently I'd say it was ok?

I don't have the bill to hand otherwise I could type the number of units we've used, etc.

How does it break it down into water and water wastage?

Cardew

If you have units, you are metered.

If not metered it will quote your RV(Rateable Value)