Property "unmeterable"

Rosie75

Having moved into our house three months ago, we received a bill from Thames Water. As our move had crippled us financially, I rang them up immediately to arrange a monthly direct debit. They wouldn't take any money as they said we would be having a meter installed. After weeks of chasing them up, they have finally visited while we were out and someone rang today to tell us that the property is ummeterable (she didn't know why, exactly). They are going to send us another bill. Not happy at the time it's taken for this to be ascertained as I didn't want the bill building up, but anyway...
I have heard that it is possible for those who can't be metered to ask the water company to bill them on "assessed usage". Does anyone have any experience of this? According to Thames Water, the average annual metered cost for a household with our occupancy and usage costs is over £100 less than if we were billed according to rateable value. Are they likely to agree to bill us in this way?

Garetha

Yes!

If they can't meter then you get their best guess as to how much water you are likely to use.

It's the ideal situation! We're on a meter and have to watch our consumption to keep the bills down - so you'll have none of that - just a fixed sum - wish it was me!

Cardew

Garetha wrote: »

Yes!

If they can't meter then you get their best guess as to how much water you are likely to use.

It's the ideal situation! We're on a meter and have to watch our consumption to keep the bills down - so you'll have none of that - just a fixed sum - wish it was me!

Agree with the above.

Normally assessed charges are a good deal.

And you can sell off your water to those neighbours on a meter:rolleyes:

Llyllyll

Rosie75 wrote: »

Having moved into our house three months ago, we received a bill from Thames Water. As our move had crippled us financially, I rang them up immediately to arrange a monthly direct debit. They wouldn't take any money as they said we would be having a meter installed. After weeks of chasing them up, they have finally visited while we were out and someone rang today to tell us that the property is ummeterable (she didn't know why, exactly). They are going to send us another bill. Not happy at the time it's taken for this to be ascertained as I didn't want the bill building up, but anyway...
I have heard that it is possible for those who can't be metered to ask the water company to bill them on "assessed usage". Does anyone have any experience of this? According to Thames Water, the average annual metered cost for a household with our occupancy and usage costs is over £100 less than if we were billed according to rateable value. Are they likely to agree to bill us in this way?

We are also on an assessed usage system. It's cheaper than the actual RV system but having not been able to have a meter installed I couldn't say whether or not it is actually a good deal as we use very little water and could be paying even less with a meter. On top of this our bill has gone up by 13% this year.

I have tried to get our assessed usage altered but there doesn't appear to be any sort of appeal system, so be very careful of what you put on the form they send you to set up the assessed usage system.