Yorkshire Water unmetered customers - how much is your bill?

catwoman73

Received annual 2011/12 water bill today and am a bit :eek: at the cost. I am aware that other regions pay more, such as the south west, but what annoys me most is that it says on the YW website that the average bill is £339 and ours is £363 and it is related to the 'rateable value' of the property, which must mean that if the bill is above average this is because the rateable value is above average which cannot be right because we live in a small 2 bedroom ex LA semi, which is in council tax band A!

Am seriously thinking of getting a meter, but what do other unmetered YW customers pay for what type of property? I would have thought that a nicer 3 bed would be 'average' and hence pay the average bill and smaller cheaper properties such as ours would pay less and the 4+ beds in real nice areas be the ones paying above average.

Gothicfairy

Your RV has nothing to do with your council tax banding and it was set in the 60's and 70's based on how much rent your property could get. It might have been that your house was worth more back then or had a new school, shops, double glazing etc etc
The average thing is very misleading really as it does not state what kind of property that is from, if your area has more flats then big houses then it could well be that the stats look different to say an older council estate.

£363 really is not that bad for 24/7 clean and safe water but if there are only one of two people in the property you might well be better off with a meter.

FLAPJACK

We haven't got our 2011/12 bill yet, but 2010/11 was £161.98 and £160.13 the year before. The RV is £36 which is based on the value of the property as assessed by the Inland Revenue prior to 1st April 1990 and cannot be changed according to the "How we calculate your bill" section on the reverse of the bill.
Our property is a 2 bed terrace built 1865 and rebuilt in 1989. I bought the place in 1990 for £15,500.....so not sure where the £36 comes in!

savemoney

I can never figure out what I owe or if they owe me, all I know is how many units I use per month. I used 119 units it dont have go up when you wash a few cars with hosepipe and not being wastful too much. I can use as low as 95-100+ (119 being quite high for us) I noticed yesterday that they fitted a wireless sender to meter so now can't close the plastic flap on meter it wasn't there last month. I am also with YW

FLAPJACK

Just been to YW site and worked out 2011/12 using their new rates, our new bill equates to £170.82.

FLAPJACK

Forgot to say Unmetered.

Cardew

FLAPJACK wrote: »

We haven't got our 2011/12 bill yet, but 2010/11 was £161.98 and £160.13 the year before. The RV is £36 which is based on the value of the property as assessed by the Inland Revenue prior to 1st April 1990 and cannot be changed according to the "How we calculate your bill" section on the reverse of the bill.
Our property is a 2 bed terrace built 1865 and rebuilt in 1989. I bought the place in 1990 for £15,500.....so not sure where the £36 comes in!

The £36 RV was the way 'local taxes' (i.e. what is now council tax) were assessed prior to 1990. You paid x pence for every £1 RV and it went up each year.

The last general revaluation of Rateable Values(RV) in UK was in 1973. At that date your house was probably completely unmodernised e.g no CH and possibly outside toilets etc. So was given an extremely low RV as it was not attractive to rent.

When your house was rebuilt in 1989 it should have been re-assessed and would have been awarded a much higher RV. This was, and is, still mandatory. However few people bothered until the council caught up with them. Also as the 'local taxes' regulations changed in April 1990 to the Poll Tax, the council wouldn't have bothered.

Any substantial improvements to a property after 1990 should, by law, be reported to the water company and they would insist on a meter being fitted. Again virtually nobody bothers, even if they are aware of the law.

I know of huge mansions with grounds of several acres that in 1973 were completely unmodernised and had a very low RV, again as nobody would want to rent such a property. Since then they have been modernised and are now worth over £1million and are Band H for council tax, but have retained that low RV,

You might ask why the Water companies do nothing about this situation? The answer is that it doesn't make any difference to the Water companies. They are allowed by the Regulator to raise £x million in revenue and, although they wouldn't admit it, it is not worth the effort.

If they attempted to enforce regulations and discover who had improved their RV rated property(no easy task) in order to fit meters, any additional revenue from that source would mean other properties would pay less - the total revenue would be the same.

This is why the only fair system is to make meters compulsory in every house; and there are signs that the Government are going to make this happen.

It is quite nonsensical that a house with, say, six occupants should pay less than a house with a single occupant - especially when the single person's property could be worth less than that with the six occupants.

macman

OP, I suggest you switch to metered billing. It will cost you nothing, and you can simply revert to RV billing if you wish, as long as you do it within 12 months of the meter being installed.

FLAPJACK

Hi Cardew,

Thanks for the detailed explanation.....another "selling point" should I move! Together with being a band "A" CT too. However compairing the CT to the water bill it looks pretty high.
I know people who live in Wimbledon who pay a lot less CT than us, but of course the population is a lot higher there than here, i.e more households.

bondy01

My parents live in Wakefield, WY and they were paying 460 based on rates for a 2 bed semi. Got them to move to a meter and they now pay half that. My yearly review has arrived today and it is 314 for the year based on 101 cu m. I am in credit and haven't used as much as the estimated reading by in total about £30 and there are 2 people here as well. You should save if you switch unless you are forever watering everything and filling up your pool!:rotfl:

bell123321

:mad: Mine last year for a 2 bed flat in Leeds was £528 un-metered. Previously when I lived in a two bed house metered it was only costing me £22 a month on average, could not believe it when I moved to a smaller property and paying double a month! Not allowed to get a meter put in either