Savern Trent Water - Single Occupancy Assessed Charge (SOAC)

SavingSomeCoin

Hi All,

I am a customer of Severn Trent Water. I am receiving bills from them based on the rateable value of the house. My bills have recently gone up to £65, so £65x8 payments = £520 for the year.

I am the only person living in the property which is a three bedroom house, but the bill seems extremely high. In my previous property I filled in a single person rate form and was paying about £21 a month for ten months, £21x10 = £210.

I am using the exact same amount of water as I have always done so paying £310 more is rediculous.

They have a Single Person Assessed Charge (SOAC), which I should be entitled to but they say I need to be assessed for having a water meter first. I have explained that I am renting the house and a water meter cannot be fitted. I do feel that it should be law that if a single person is living in a property they should get a single person rate,
simply by filling out the required form.

Does anyone have any similar experience with Seven Trent Water on this issue?

Thanks in advance,
SavingSomeCoin

macman

Since you are billed on the RV value, the billing would be the same if there were ten people in the house or one. There is no adjustment based on occupancy. Your consumption is also irrelevant-what is different is the RV value compared to your previous property. This assumes that the previous property was also in the ST region (since prices vary by up to 250% by region).
You can have a water meter fitted in a rental property if your STA is more than 6 months, so that is the route to go down. Subject to that, it's no concern of the LL.
ST are required by statute to bill you on the historical RV, and there is no discretion on this. Assessed billing is a provision for those who cannot have a meter fitted for technical reasons, which has to be ascertained by means of a survey. Nothing to do with a landlord objecting.

Cardew

SavingSomeCoin wrote: »

They have a Single Person Assessed Charge (SOAC), which I should be entitled to but they say I need to be assessed for having a water meter first. I have explained that I am renting the house and a water meter cannot be fitted.

As said above, you are NOT entitled to a single person assessed charge.


The majority of us would choose an assessed charge rather than paying for metered charges. That would give us the opportunity to use unlimited amounts of water for a much lower payment than either metered of Rateable Value charges.


Again as stated above, your landlord cannot prevent you getting a meter fitted; in fact the water company have the option of fitting a compulsory meter on change of occupant.