Surface water drainage rebate?

Lusty

I just got this charge removed as I only have soakaways.
My question is this.
Am I entitled to a refund of this charge since I have been living at this address since 2004?
After all,if I owed Southern Water money from the past,they'd expect it off me.
Thanx in advance.

deanos

no you cant , you can only go back 1 year

Cardew

deanos wrote: »

no you cant , you can only go back 1 year

Deanos,

That was always the stance taken by all the companies and backed by Ofwat. However that might not now be the case and Ofwat have changed the wording on their guidance on this issue.

You might like to read this thread:

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

The ‘clincher’ in this case may have been the recent change in the wording of the OFWAT guidance (to “when a [water] company - might reasonably be expected to have known, that a property or properties were not connected to its sewerage system for surface water drainage”) the implications
of which, I believe, are truly significant. All thanks to Cardew for having pointed this out to the forum some time ago.

The difficulty will be acertaining how the water company 'might reasonably be expected to have known' that a property was not connected to a sewer for SWD.

It is obviously not practical for water companies to inspect 20 million properties. Also No 22 Railway Cottages East Cheam might have SWD going to the sewer, but No 24 recently built doesn't.

If you live on a modern estate, and other houses don't pay SWD charges, I expect they will refund if the OP makes enough of a fuss.

Of course the simple answer is abolish this stupid charge altogether. How can it be reasonable for all the flats in a 20 storey block to pay the same SWD charge.