Water Bill 4 years after moving out!

Sturrocko

My daughter was a Uni student and shared a house with 10 other people in Hull back in 2006. Shortly after moving in the letting agent removed the water meter during refub work, and my daughter reported this many times to Yorkshire Water because she wanted to avoid getting a nasty shock of a bill. YW said many times that they would send someone out, but never did. 4 years later, and after many phone calls, YW have presented a bill for £1100 which they admit is based on average usage for one week AFTER they had moved out! Thy have now told her she has 7 days to pay before court action. My daughter admits there is something to pay, but so does the other 10 people, but they are chasing her ONLY as they happen to have her name.
Many questions:
Can they really chase money 4 years later legally even though they had failed to take sufficient remedial action once it was reported the meter had been removed?
Are all 11 students equally liable for any debt?
Can the validity of the estimated bill they have stumped up be challenged? After all the property was empty 4 months of the year during holidays etc.

Would appreciate anyones comments or feedback on similar occurrences.

Gothicfairy

Sturrocko wrote: »

My daughter was a Uni student and shared a house with 10 other people in Hull back in 2006. Shortly after moving in the letting agent removed the water meter during refub work, and my daughter reported this many times to Yorkshire Water because she wanted to avoid getting a nasty shock of a bill. YW said many times that they would send someone out, but never did. 4 years later, and after many phone calls, YW have presented a bill for £1100 which they admit is based on average usage for one week AFTER they had moved out! Thy have now told her she has 7 days to pay before court action. My daughter admits there is something to pay, but so does the other 10 people, but they are chasing her ONLY as they happen to have her name.
Many questions:
Can they really chase money 4 years later legally even though they had failed to take sufficient remedial action once it was reported the meter had been removed?They can chase the debt for 6 years..However removing a water meter is illegal as it is the property of the water company ( not that it means they will do anything about it but it might be worth mentioning)
Are all 11 students equally liable for any debt? That all depends on how many of them where listed on the water bill , if your daughter was the only one who's name was on the bill then it might be hard to get the company to do anything other then go after her as they will say it is a 3rd party dispute. Where they all tenants on the agreement for the same amount of time..ie did they all rent from 01.04.09 - 01.04.10 or did some move out before ?)
Can the validity of the estimated bill they have stumped up be challenged? After all the property was empty 4 months of the year during holidays etc. It has happened that water companies have been to court and won based on ADC ( adverage daily consumption) as the default is alway that it is down to the customer to supply readings etc, they only need to do one each year if the tenant/ owner is in occupation for the year,it gets slightly more complicated in student properties because it might not be able to get one read during each tenancy agreement, you can of course provide proof that it was empty IE council tax bill and that should help

Would appreciate anyones comments or feedback on similar occurrences.

If I were you the first thing I would do is fax / post a copy of the tenancy agreement showing all the students names and the dates of tenancy, a copy of the council tax bill to show when it was empty and a letter explaining the situation.
I was also send the meter readings that your daughter should have from the date she moved in to the date the meter was removed and the full details of the landlord and when the meter was removed etc.

I would then ask that they review the case based on the above and see what they have to say before anything else.

macman

Everyone whose name was on the account is jointly and severally liable for the whole debt-not 'equally liable'. Unfortunately if your daughter's name is the one they have first, they will pursue her for the full debt. They do not get involved in 3rd party disputes about who owes what share.