Surface Water Charges

Charliebug

Hi, I am hoping someone can give me some advice. I have received a letter from Severn Trent advising they have recently discovered that surface water from my property does not drain into the sewers, even though I have paid for surface water drainage ever since I moved into the property 8 years ago. They are going to refund this year's surface water charges to me but not for the other 7 years I have lived at the property. I have tried arguing that they have charged me for a service which I have never benefitted from but all they say is "it doesn't work like that"!

Can anyone please offer any help as to whether they are correct?

Many thanks

sharp82

I used to work for Severn Trent (10 years ago), and i'm afraid they are correct. A number of customers argued their point to the regulator, and the regulator ruled in Severn Trent's favour.

At least you dont have to pay it any more

Cardew

sharp82 wrote: »

I used to work for Severn Trent (10 years ago), and i'm afraid they are correct. A number of customers argued their point to the regulator, and the regulator ruled in Severn Trent's favour.

At least you dont have to pay it any more

That used to be the situation, and their stance on backdating was backed by Ofwat(the Regulator)

However there has been a change and Ofwat have revised the guidance on their website.



It now states that the rebate should be backdated where the water company should reasonably have known that the property should not have been charged for SWD.

It doesn't define 'reasonably have known' but presumably something like properties on an estate built in the same period where some houses had claimed relief.

There are a couple of recent threads where someone has got backdated rebates.

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

Cardew

OP.

A further point on the fiasco of Surface water Drainage(SWD) charges.

When water was privatised the Parliamentary Act laid down that the 'default' position would be that properties would be charged SWD - so every flat in a 20 storey block all paid the full rate.

It was up to properties to claim relief.

The reasoning was that it was not feasible for the water companies to inspect some 20 million properties in UK. It is not always easy to find out who has a soakaway.

Also the water company don't make(or lose) money by charging(or not) for SWD. Their revenue and hence profit is tightly controlled by the Regulator. Any shortfall in revenue is simply made up by an increase in charges for other services - a win/win situation.

So if you, and a hundred thousand other households, get a backdated rebate of, say, £100 each, the £1million loss in revenue will be made up by a small increase in other charges.

So go for it!

briskly_2

I just found out from neighbours that there is an underwater river in the street which surface water from all the houses drains into. They have been claiming a rebate for over 6 years, having found out from another neighbour who was claiming. I called Anglian Water and they have agreed to pay a rebate for this year but refuse to pay for previous years quoting Ofwat's old advice (have been living here for 50 years and never new about the river). It appears that at least 6 other people in the street are getting rebates and Anglian must have known about this for a very long time - the houses are all the same and about 60 years old. Does anyone think I stand a chance for getting a rebate back to 2001 as a result of the new Ofwat advice?

Cardew

briskly wrote: »

I just found out from neighbours that there is an underwater river in the street which surface water from all the houses drains into. They have been claiming a rebate for over 6 years, having found out from another neighbour who was claiming. I called Anglian Water and they have agreed to pay a rebate for this year but refuse to pay for previous years quoting Ofwat's old advice (have been living here for 50 years and never new about the river). It appears that at least 6 other people in the street are getting rebates and Anglian must have known about this for a very long time - the houses are all the same and about 60 years old. Does anyone think I stand a chance for getting a rebate back to 2001 as a result of the new Ofwat advice?

This is the Ofwat guidance.

“There




will be occasions when a company did know, or might reasonably be expected to have known, that a property or properties were not connected to its sewerage system for surface water drainage. Under such circumstances we would expect the company to apply a rebate with effect from the date that it knew it was not
providing the service.”

The difficulty is for a householder to determine when a company 'might reasonably be expected to have known' etc.

As far as I am aware there is no duty on the Company to check other houses in the area of a successful claimant. In any case what would that prove? The two nearest houses to my 25 year old property are Victorian.

It is certainly worth trying to get the rebate backdated, especially as they quoted the old ofwat advice.

This is the actual section of the Ofwat advice:

http://www.ofwat.gov.uk/consumerissues/surfacewaterdrainage/prs_web_swdrebates2

If they won't play ball pass the issue to the Consumer Council for Water.