Anglian Water leak 30 days to comply

atrixblue.-MFR-.

paidinchickens wrote: »

It had "two job tickets on the house" and that the house owner had been informed previously on both occasions. AW came to check the meter which had a slow leak and have checked whose side of the meter it's on and said it is his.

Very confusing

PiC x

Contact Anglian water and see if they run a free repair scheme.


I know welsh water has a scheme where by if a leak is detected on the owners side of the boundary they will dig and repair free (terms and cons permitting) but back fill and drive concrete is organized by the owner and his cost, im sure 15m is max length they will run a new pipe from boundary, they only do this after so many years on a single property so if a leak pops up a year later its down to the owner inside houses they don't offer this.


looks like the leakage boys has been patient with the previous owner and not issued a waste notice, this maybe due to the leak wasn't big enough to warrant a notice but it may have grew bigger, the leakage team assigned in the area have a target to find the metered loss of water this maybe 6000 litres per hour lost in an area, that meter maybe losing 1000 litres of water an hours in the ground and makes up part of the target while in the area other jobs that were done like broken mains and other type of leaks they may have brought the area loss down to 2000 litres per hours and now that property is losing the majority of that.


I would contact the boys who may have left a card to get intouch with them direct, explain the situation and ask them is there any chance their boss can meet on site to discuss options in fixing the leak. they are not all out to bring you to court their trying to grab to your attention that it needs fixing and quick, they should help and assist going forward.

paidinchickens

The AW fella said they no longer fix for free as they used all the budget up for freebies.

I'm going to go round and speak to the neighbours tomorrow and see if they know anything.

My friend was already delayed moving in by two days as they had a debt charge on the house which had to be removed first, a leaking boiler, plug sockets were wired wrong and all the internal doors had do not close as you can't open them again signs on.

lighting_up_the_chalice

paidinchickens wrote: »

It's his own house and he is insured but the poor bu88er has only been in the house for two nights.

Contact his insurers and put in a claim. Get the leak sorted then let them sort out any fall-out. They have the necessary resource to establish the liability and, if necessary, chase for any recoverable costs. Let them do what they are paid to do.

jimbog

From Anglian Water's website:
If you receive one or more of the following benefits, you may be able to get help to pay for the pipe repair:

• Council Tax Benefit
• Housing Benefit
• Income Support
• Income-based Job Seekers’ Allowance
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• Working Tax Credit
• Child Tax Credit (except families in receipt of the family element only).
• State Pension Credit
• Universal Credit

For more details, call us on 08457 91 91 55.
http://www.anglianwater.co.uk/household/water-supply/leakage/fixing-leaks.aspx

G_M

CAB:

Even though it’s your responsibility to repair the supply pipe, most water companies offer a one-off free repair or subsidised repairs to their customers. You should ask your water company what the conditions are for these repairs.

water.guide:

After the pipe has been repaired most water companies should reimburse you with a one off payment towards the repair on receipt of the invoice. There will usually be maximum amount payable and certain conditions, for example, that the repairs were carried out within 30 days of finding out about the leak.

paidinchickens

Me again

Anglian Water are offering no help what so ever as being disabled does not put you on the vulnerable list apparently.

Being on income support, housing benefit etc you get help but being blind and sick does not.

The only reason he has any money is because he moved to this house as it was cheaper so he didn't have to go through the stress of claiming benefits!



Any ideas?

cattie

Have you tried the mp route yet? Many water companies are getting bad press & are anxious to portray themselves as anything but heartless money grabbers.

mart.vader

As G_M says above, most Water Co's have a subsidised one-off leak repair service, but it doesn't look like AW have one. (Happy to be shown to be wrong, though)

In general, on detecting a customer side leak, Water Co's will send a relatively polite letter notifying the customer of the leak, then if the leak is not fixed, say three months later, they send another, more strongly worded letter, then if again nothing is done they send an even more strongly worded letter advising that if the leak is not fixed within a certain period, they will invoke their right under one of the Water Acts to enter the premises, (can't remember which section of which Act this is) and repair the leak with attendant extra costs. This might be what is meant by "two job tickets at this house"

As your pal hasn't had the benefit of two warnings, it would be fairer for AW to restart the process again, but I don't know how you could persuade them to do so.

On this link is their leaflet for "Water Care"> http://www.anglianwater.co.uk/_assets/media/12087_ANW_Watercare_Leaflet_A5_8pp_LED055_07_13.pdf

which apparently offers special assistance for elderly, partially sighted, or hearing impaired customers. It doesn't specifically refer to "customer-side leaks". In your position, I think I would copy as much of their leaflet that apply to your pal, show it to them, and ask them to live up to their promises.

I recall another poster, asking on behalf of her friend who being taken to court by AW for late payment. her friend was elderly, impoverished, had no cheque account, lived in a very rural village and AW had taken him off the payment plan, because he missed one payment, the Post Office had closed the only pay-point in the village, so he had to travel to pay and just couldn't do it.

I'm sure you will find that AW are all heart (!)

silvercar

Having been on the end of not addressing a water leak, I can tell you that after the letter he has had there will be another one that says they will address the problem themselves and then bill you, if you don't sort it yourself. Eventually that is exactly what they will do. After which you
Get a bill. To be fair they only added on a small amount for their administration costs. They have an obligation to be fair in pricing so can't rip you off, I suspect they also get favourable rates from contractors that they favour with work. So it isn't a terrible situation.

(By way of explanation, we had a shared water pipe that we were responsible for a quarter of, another quarter someone else and half costs were to a housing association, so we just couldn't get agreement amongst ourselves to sort the leak in the timescales required.)

Of course in this case once you have the final bill you will want to get someone else to pay it or refund you. but getting the water board to do the work means that there can't be any arguments about the size of the bill.