Can I reclaim? How far? We've been paying for Surface water when we have a soak away!

mollyann_2

Hi, Can anyone help? Just found out that I've been paying for Sewrage rate 1 for 10 years, that means I pay for all my surface water to go into a drain..but we dont have one! We have a soak away and NO extrenal drains into the sewer. I have been paying this without checking the bill properly for 10 years. We have a meter and pay our bills to South West Water. Does anyone have experiance of this matter? i canot see why I could not claim for all the years I have been overcharged.

Thanks if you can help in anyway.

Cardew

This has been covered loads of times on this forum; If you do a search you will find the very point about getting refunds for previous years has been covered.

Most companies stick rigidly to only giving a refund for a year and I believe this policy is backed by the water Regulator.

Most agree that the 'default position' that you pay surface water drainage is wrong; but that was mandated by the Government when water was privatised.

Playing the Devil's Advocate, if you don't know where your surface water goes, how do you expect the water companies to know? They can hardly carry out a detailed inspection of every property in the land(it is not easy to determine the exact drainage layout). This was the very reason that the Government imposed the 'default position'.

It is also pertinent to point out that if any of your surface water runs off your property onto a road(and hence sewer) you are still not entitled to relief from the charge.

You have been properly billed in line with the conditions imposed on the companies and didn't challenge it.

One person claimed that he was going to get a refund back for 6 years; but I have not seen any further post on this.

The fault of course is that the water companies/Government have not given any publicity telling people that they can get relief from the charge.

Actually the water companies do not profit from this unfair charge. Their charges are governed by the Regulator so it doesn't matter to them if everyone claims relief from the surface water charge; they simply are allowed to raise other charges to compensate.