Surface water drainage charges

Dinky1968

Hi , I have now had a letter from united utilities to confirm that I should not be paying for surface water drainage . They say they will send a new bill for this year ! , but I have been over paying for a service I have never had for the past 15 years ! . Can I reclaim this money back ? Who should I contact ? . Thanks for any help

yangptangkipperbang

Dinky1968 wrote: »

Can I reclaim this money back ?

Nope !...............

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

The Water Act made the default position for customers that they would pay for Surface Water Drainage(SWD) and relief from that charge would have to be claimed.

Until recently there was no doubt that you could not claim back for previous years. This stance was backed by ofwat(the Regulator) and there have been many cases reported on MSE of failure to get this charge backdated.

To some extent that stance was understandable as it was not reasonable for the water companies to inspect some 20 million properties to check if their surface water entered the sewerage system.

However Ofwat have recently 'softened' their position on this charge, and backdating rebates can be allowed where the water company should have known that the property should have been exempt from SWD charges.

There are a number of threads about this situation.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4417421

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4549449

devondiver

YES!!! - Absolutely.

See Cardew's links above.