Water bill woes

markus250

Hi All,

Is there any website or anything out there where i could find out what the last owner in our house was paying a year for their water bill?? I've heard that water companies tend to increase the bill when someone new moves in? We moved in a year ago and the water bill is HUGE in comparison to our last house. Our last house was smaller but talking to all the neighbours here, i'm paying way more than they are and they're in bigger houses than i am! I don't get it.

I don't know the last owner so can't find out what the rateable value was back when he was living here.

Would be nice to know.

I emailed severn trent water about the high bill and they basically said it is what it is and would i like to go on a meter?!

Cheers guys!
Mark

matelodave

If you are on rateable value billing rather than on a meter you'll be paying roughly the same as the previous occupant (taking annual increments/inflation into account) as his RV will be the same as yours.
You might be better off on a meter

CLAPTON

maybe if you said what is your council tax band and water bill some-one could help

matelodave

Council tax band has nothing to do with it - it's the original rateable value which bears no relationship with the tax banding.

stef73

How was the rateable value worked out? im in the oposite position, live in a terrace pay £5 a month less than 1 and half less than the other side. I only found out when i was talking about putting in a front soak away to my neighbours(already have rear) to get my bill reduced.

kerri_gt

General rule of thumb is if you have less people to bedrooms, you're better on a meter. Do yo know the number of occupants who were in the property before you? Is there a significant difference and were you on a meter in your previous property?

Cardew

kerri_gt wrote: »

Do yo know the number of occupants who were in the property before you? Is there a significant difference and were you on a meter in your previous property?

It doesn't matter if there was one occupant in the property, or fifty occupants.


The charges for the property were based on the Rateable Value(RV),and not a meter, so they could use as much water as they wished and still pay the same charges.


As said earlier, the RV is not connected to the Rateable Value. In extreme cases it is possible to have an 8 bed Band H mansion with a lower RV than a 1 bed Band A flat.