Old water bill

deborah1963333

I have recently moved into a property after private renting for a long time (i paid my landlord for my water)so i rang the water board to let them know id moved in to the new property..they then tell me i owe £400 from 2010/2012..from another property,i have disputed this as i would not have lived in a property for 2 years and ignored water bills ..i can not remember how i payed my wayer that long ago but im fairly sure i had a payment card..i have no way of proving i dont owe this money..i have no proof of any paymdnts,i dont understand why after all these years and why they didnt ask me for this money sooner..is there any advice at all please

dogshome

WRITE to your water supplier, telling them that you have no records going back 9 to 10 years, but from memory you paid by way of a payment card, but in any case the Statute of Limitations bars limits any historical claim they may have to 6 years or less 

Cardew

dogshome said:

WRITE to your water supplier, telling them that you have no records going back 9 to 10 years, but from memory you paid by way of a payment card, but in any case the Statute of Limitations bars limits any historical claim they may have to 6 years or less 

The above assumes that the Water Company had not taken court action within 6 years from the date of the alleged debt.

Presumably the water company would have written to the OP about the debt but had no reply either because she had moved or chosen not to reply.

Someone cannot run up a debt of, say, £millions, get a court order against them, become untraceable for 6 years, and re-appear with the debt wiped.

dogshome

Quite right Cardew, but the OP comes over as an honest person,.(Though you can never tell for certain), and suppliers screwing up Card Payment accounts is not uncommon

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deborah1963333

Cardew i have never had a court order for this at all..i was never on meterd water either but they say i was meterd..if i owed this money i would happily pay it..yesturday they said i made no payments today a different adviser said i made a few..they have always known were i was..i asked why they had left it so long they could not answer she didnt know why it had been left so long..iv asked them for the last correspondance they sent me..not sure we have any now was her answer..yet yesturday an adviser said they have copies of letters sent out,so it will be interesting to see what they dig up..and dont assume iv just popped up iv not hid from anybody ..
Thankyou
Dogshome thankyou for your help

Cardew

Deborah, This is a forum where lots of people read threads to get information, in addition to the OP.

'dogshome' posted an accurate comment on the Statute of Limitations which I thought required a general point of clarification for a situation where a debt was the subject of a court order ; that is why I quoted his post.

If people are chased for a debt, it usally occurs after they have moved from an address. We get frequent posts on here where letters and even court orders never reach the intended receipient. My daughter had such a situation when at university, in her second year she moved student digs a couple of times and notification of a tiny sum owing never reached her. Apparently several chasing letters, each adding costs, also were not forwarded and it was not untill she graduated and moved back to my house did the debt catch up with her.

If the water company had chased you for a real or imagined debt after you had moved house it is perfectly feasible that you would be unaware of that correspondence. But that wasn't the point of my post.

deborah1963333

Thanks for the advice dogshome ..i have been informed this morning they will not recover debt 😊👍