Water Bills questions and comment

baileysbank

[ I live in a 3 bedrm 2 year old house with 3 adults, we have a main bathrm, ensuit, and downstairs toilet, we pay £46 per month on a water meter.
A friend of mine lives in an old terrace house 2 adults 2 children, 3 bedrm, one bath room, they pay £17per month with no water meter.
Wht is there such a big difference?]Please place your water bill questions and comments here.




Addition by Fran - link to Martin's article HERE











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barcodecancelled

I've just received a reduction of £86 per year on my water bill as my surface water goes to a soakaway in the garden, not into the drains!

It only took a phone call and a couple of reminder calls, as they were slow sending the appropriate form, but once I'd completed the form all went smoothly. I believe the water companies charge everyone for rainwater removal until they ask for a discount.

Cardew

barcodecancelled wrote: »

I believe the water companies charge everyone for rainwater removal until they ask for a discount.

That is correct; they have to make the charge for Surface Water Drainage as it was mandated when water was privatised.

Loads and loads of threads on this - search for 'Surface Water Drainage'

roosterpotatoes

i live in the north west of england and united utilities have a thing called watersure which helps people like yourself
hth

Quddos

GhostHunter wrote: »

Hi

Advanced appologies if this is in the wrong place, but it is linked to water bills!



Speaking about the water bill as I have been gathering the paperwork together I have noticed that I seem to have another problem now in that I am in debt with the waste water company but as far as I can see it isn't my fault this time.

Statement date 4 April 2008
My statement shows:

Unmetered wastewater services statement for billing period 01/04/08 - 31/03/09

Total now due is £259.31

How the bill is calculated:

The rateable value for property is £161
Wastewater pence in the £ is 101.20
Number of days in billing period is 365

Breakdown of charges for this bill

Wastewater rateable value charge £162.93
Wastewater standing charge £27.28
Surface water drainage £22.00
Highway drainage £7.00
Total for this bill = £219.21

Account summary
Ballance brought foward £40.10
Charges for this bill £219.21

Total now due = £259.31


It then says that -

Your bill includes a 1.5% reduction due to previous misreporting of information to Ofwat. We are sorry.

At the foot of the bill it says in capital letters -

For information only - payment scheme in operation.

I then have a letter dated 7 April 2008 that reads:

There is no need for you to contact us in response to this letter

We have recalculated your payment scheme to take account of our charges for 2008 / 09

If you have not yet received your bill for 08/09 you will do so in the next few days. We are pleased to confirm that your new payment scheme is as follows:

1st installment of £25.94, due 25/4/08

Following installments are £25.93 due MONTHLY from 25/5/08 until the next review of your plan.

You can continue to use your existing payment card, our records will be updated automatically with details of the payments made.

Please remember to keep your receipts as a record of the payments that you have made. If you should lose or damage your card, please call our automated service straight away on xxxx xxx xxxx to order a replacement.

Switching to paying monthly by direct debit for the first time we will reduce your anual bill by £5.

Yours sincerely

sig XXXXXXXXX


Customer services director.

Two issues I have here,

1 - I have never registered for a payment card and signed up for Direct Debit from the day we moved in 2 years ago. Obviously payments stop for a while but I ALWAYS renew them as soon as I get the annual bill, as I did in this case.

2 - I do not have a payment card, never have received one. I remember calling them in response to the letter to check I had an 'active' Direct Debit and this was confirmed over the phone, I was told collections may begin a few days later than 25th but not to worry.

However on looking again today when trying to sort the paperwork out I have now noted that they have not been taking payment and there is no direct debit set up on my account. I have double checked to see the date or amount hasn't changed and looked back through all my statements since April but still no sign!

I am now going to have to call the Water company up tomorrow to sort this out but that leaves me in debt of £25.94 a month since April (collection date should be 25th of each month) therefore I am almost 4 months behind so thats £25.94 x 4 = £103.76 debt through no fault of my own. :mad:

I have an idea they will simply say they can add the £103.76 debt spread out onto the remaining 8 months I have to pay but that will obviously push up the amount to be collected each month by £12.97 to bring the total monthly Direct debit to £38.91 a month for 1 waste water bill, more money I simply cannot afford (£25.94 was a struggle)! :eek:

Now what do I do where do I stand here?


How can we know if we would be better off with a water meter (are they free to get installed?) There is just me, my husband and 2 dogs and a 200 gallon tropical fish tank in our household of a small 2 bedroom bungalow. Any advice on saving money on water (waste or supply) most appreciated.

As you probably know I am already stretched to breaking point finacially and emotionally!

Many thanks.

H

:beer:

This looks like a Southern Water bill, I used to work for them, disgusting company that are the lowest Water Board for Customer Service. Phone up and check your note elidgable for a Surface Water Drainage rebate aswell, cause they wont tell you if you are!

SAVINGMUM_2

Hi, I live in a small mid terrace house, their are 2adults and 1toddler. Our water bill payments have gone up to £65 per month. I don’t understand it, our neighbours has also just gone up (2adults) to £25 a month and she’s not happy with that. I cant understand how we are using so much more? We went away for 4nights and took a meter reading and when we came back it worked out that we had used 3 full baths whilst we weren’t here. Severn Trent have been out and had a look at the meter and it wasn’t showing a leak, it didn’t move with everything off.
Other than someone using our garden tap, which I very much doubt it - our neighbours are very trusting I cant understand it. We are going away again for a couple of nights so will take reading again.
We live in a terrace of 3 houses, their meters are reading at one thousand odd and ours is three thousand odd??
Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you

donglefan

barcodecancelled wrote: »

I've just received a reduction of £86 per year on my water bill as my surface water goes to a soakaway in the garden, not into the drains!

It only took a phone call and a couple of reminder calls, as they were slow sending the appropriate form, but once I'd completed the form all went smoothly. I believe the water companies charge everyone for rainwater removal until they ask for a discount.

Hi, may I ask if you are metered?

I asked Southern Water for a discount as more than half my run off water goes into a stream and this was their reply:

On reviewing our records, I confirm that your property Windsor Castle is an unmetered property. In an unmetered property, our charges are calculated by reference to the rateable value of your property and rateable value is a property based assessment. Our charges are therefore, raised on the provision of our services rather than actual volume used or indeed the number of people occupying a property. The rateable value of your property is 262. I regret to inform you that we are unable to grant a discount for wastewater.

Cardew

joeAnne wrote: »

The article is very interesting. The subject treated there is a common one, at least for me. But frankly, I can't think about this at the moment because I'm very excited about leaving on some SPAM(from a dim travel agent) with all my family and friends. Maybe when I come back I will, but I'm not that sure because then I'll have in mind memories of the places I've seen.

Just about the most stupid Spam I have seen on MSE
Reported

CocoChanel_4

Hi All,

I wonder can I ask a question, recently I had a letter from Anglian Water offering Water Supply Pipe information, but is actually trying to sell Water Supply Pipe 'Cover' from 'Homeserve'.
These types of things are sent to scare us i'm sure, but does it make sense to have such cover, or would it be covered elsewhere perhaps????

Wilfy

Hi,
We moved into a rented house in May of this year. We received a water bill from united utilities in June saying we owed £387 pounds for the time of May 08 to March 09 and that they would be taking £4.69 a month to cover it. I phoned them up and said that clearly £4.69 wouldnt cover the bill and I didnt want to be lumbered with a high bill at the end of the year could they please correct it. The woman assured me that she would. I then put the thing out my mind as she said something would come through the post to let me know. I realised a couple of weeks ago that nothing had happened so phoned them up and spoke to another lady who said the first lady (stick with me please) had just adjusted my direct debit amount to 0 and nothing had been collected since i phoned in June. Consequentially we are now having to pay £76.51 a month from now until March next year to sort it. I am not happy about this as it is a large amount of money we dont really have spare, and seen as its me who has had to get it sorted and point out that THEY arent charging enough not once but twice its a bit cheeky. I do know I should have chased it earlier but I just completely forgot.

How would I go about complaining and to whom? And realistically is there anything likely to happen.
Thanks for reading.