Save money on surface water charges

stwaterrat

This potential saving only applies to metered customers.
If you have a water meter that was installed several years ago you may still be paying the surface water element of your bill via rateable value.
In 1995 a new tariff was introduced based on property type. There are three property bands - roughly terraced, semi, detached. At the time there was some publicity about the change but very little is currently published.
New metered customers are automatically charged via property band and have been for several years, but existing customers have to request the change.
If you are still paying via rateable value you should ring your water company to check if you are paying the lower of the two tariffs for your situation. They will not tell you unless you ask.
You will gain if your rateable value is relatively high for the type of property you live in. For example, if you live in a detached house and your rateable value is greater than about £300 pa you are likely to save money. In my case I am saving over £50 per year and could have had this saving for the last ten years if I had asked.
Retrospective rebates are 'not company policy' and Ofwat / Consumer Council for Water seem to support this policy.
I am appalled at this lack of transparency in charges and hope as many others as possible will reduce their costs and also complain about the lack of clear information about these 'alternative' tariffs.
For completeness I should add that some customers would not benefit from making this switch - but I think the majority would benefit.

Cardew

You are absolutely right about the lack of transparancy; and of course the majority of customers should not be paying for any surface water drainage; either on the Rateable Value(RV) or the banding charge, as their water goes into a soakaway.

This has been covered many times on this forum; the latest being this:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=192960

If you do a search for soakaway you will find many other references.