Rateable value very high - property divided in 1980s

strowger

Hi,

I have recently bought a 4 bedroom semi-detatched property in the Yorkshire Water area. The combined bill for fresh water and sewerage is £650pa.

This seems very high to me - my previous 3-bed terrace in the same area was £220pa.

I understand that I have the option to switch to metered, and that might be cheaper. For various reasons (extremely high water pressure, long private supply pipe over difficult terrain across land which I do not own, small children) I would prefer to avoid this.

I am a bit puzzled by the very large bill relative to the previous house.

I understand that these bills are based on rateable value (RV), and there are no appeals over this or possibilities to change/challenge it.

It is possible that my RV is high because my house, while currently semi-detatched, was once a single very large (8 bedroom?) house. I'm not sure exactly when it was divided in two, but I think it was some time during the 1980s.

Is there any mileage in attempting to challenge the RV on this basis? At the time it was done, the house had no public water supply, just spring water (full of sheep poo) from a nearby field.

This is my third and last post about different water bill issues. Apologies for the spam and thanks in advance for any help.

Cheers

Cardew

There is no appeal against the RV.


There have been a number of posts stating that they live in a house converted to flats and their flat and all other flats have retained the same RV as the original house.


OR


They have retained the original RV and the other flats pay no water charges because the water company has not appreciated the house has been converted to flats.


Either of those cases might apply to your semi-detached house.


However even if either of those scenarios applied to your property, there simply isn't any mechanism to re-assess your house for Rateable value.


Notwithstanding the above, £650 for a 4 bed house in Yorkshire is not particularly high. With standing charges of £91 and water/sewerage at £2.92 per £1 of RV, that would mean your house would have an RV of £191 which would be average, or even below average, for a 4 bed semi.