United Utilities asking for payment for 2.5 year old "debt"

terric

Hi everyone, hope you can help me out with some advice.

OK, United Utilities recently sent us a letter saying they owe us £650 for over-payments, the address on the letter was Ribble View (we've never lived there - we live at Bunker Street) so yeah... the letter was sent to Bunker Street (addressed on the envelope) but the bill (well refund) was addressed Ribble View.

We queried this and they eventually came back saying we owe them £650 (but the address had been changed to Ribble Close - where we actually used to live). Again... we queried this, so they went off and did some more hard sums and sent another letter saying we owe them £707. We again queried this and they deleted our account, recovered it again and sent us another bill for the same amount.

Now onto the details:

They are saying we were undercharged between Aug 2005 - Aug 2008 because the rateable value for Ribble Close was £160 (where we actually lived, they say was empty) and where they thought we lived (around the corner was £58 ... can a rateable value differ that much in a 100 yard radius???

So to summarise we actually lived in Ribble Close between Aug 2005 - Aug 2008 and paid their estimates in full by Direct Debit. This property was unmetered and went off rateable value for the area. They had us down at Ribble View (different rateable area) and thought Ribble Close was empty when we actually lived there... and our correspondance was sent to an empty house???

Sorry if this isn't clear, but it is as it is and my head has crashed. We're currently in dispute with them, but in the meantime can they just take payment for the full amount or cut our water off?

Thanks!

Gothicfairy

If I have this right this is a kinda cross supply without the supply.

They thought you lived at A and billed you for A but you really lived at B and B was more expensive so they now want the difference.

Well first off : they can do that I am afraid as they are allowed to back bill for 6 years even if they never managed to bill you before. I am though wondering how you go the bill you paid and didn't notice the address issue ?

They do not cut off domestic water for non payment of debt but CAN and DO issue a CCJ etc so be careful. They can also take the full amount if you have a on demand DD as it will just take the total outstanding but if you have a payment plan they should be able to sort out a new amount.

I am afraid there might be nothing you can do as they might well argue that you should have noticed the address on the bill and what you were paying for.

terric

Hi there,

Thanks for the reply. This is my predicament as on the old bills it said Ribble Close (the address where we actually lived) but now they're saying it was Ribble View on their system (if it was we would have sorted that immediately)... the problem is when we moved house (2.5 years ago) we shredded old bills because we never thought we'd have this crap 2.5 years on.

So for their administration issue we may end up paying this!

Gothicfairy

Fraid you might well end up paying for it...........BUT I do have one idea that might be worth a go.

Addresses for water companies should come from the royal mail and be updated through their system when addresses are changed. If the properties both have RV's then they are not new builds clearly so should have been on the system for years.

If there was only one address ie Ribble close and that was wrongly attached to 2 properties ( can happen) then one was over written and corrected that is a clear admin issue and you could argue that it should not have been overwritten without speaking to you or that it was done in a royal mail run and if that is the case how often do they run the updates..

It might well not work as it is not a proper legal position but it might make them think about it and offer some help ??? Got to be worth a go.

Gothicfairy

I think this is an addresses management issue and as such a back office process . So really you need to ring or email and ask that it get past to that department as part of the DG6 and that will make sure someone gets in touch with you within 5 working days.

terric

Hi again, sorry to sound stupid but what is the DG6? Tried searching around but I'm missing a proper context.

Gothicfairy

Not stupid at all..
The whole thing really is not important ( lots of waffle etc) but it means if you ask for a reply from a dept they HAVE to reply to you within 5 working days > 10 for complaints, now that reply might just be "we are still looking into it" but they can not bin if off and if they do you can go to OFWAT for further advice.
It is really though just a way to make sure you get your call returned as it means you know what rule they are breaking if they don't do it.

terric

Brilliant, thanks for your advice! I'll see where I get and let you know the outcome.

Thanks again!!