£5,000 Digging Costs for Water Leak - No Leak Found

LeagueOfWolf

Hello,
Basically require some advice.
I got a letter from Thames Water about a leak and assumed it was external.
Got some plumbers in who could not find the leak thus recommended leak specialist. So I found  specialist water Leak plumbers from the recommended website Thames Water suggest (water safe verified) and they came in and fixed all minor leaks and gave me a report saying that it was not internal and that it is potentially external.
I called up Thames Water they said this would be something the Property Management deal with and thus, I asked them about it. THey agreed and said it would be covered by insurance.

They got someone out to review the property and assume it was under our bin storage but when they came and dug it out. It was not there - they came into the property and said it seems to be the Water storage that is broken. Thus it is internal.

Now we are having to fork out £5000 (no insurance on our side - I was going to get it AFTER getting all this work done since it wouldn't be covered as its a known issue) no leak found. But this digging was due to the report of the Plumber professional and also on the assumption by the Property Management. It was all something advised by professionals which now, it's me having to pay for everything when nothing has even been fixed yet I'm not sure what to do. It's a lot of money.

It does sounds like Leak detection is difficult but why are we forking out for the entire thing when the leak detection Plumber should be the one to have discovered it but didn't ? 

QrizB

I'm a little confused by your story.

LeagueOfWolf said:

I called up Thames Water they said this would be something the Property Management deal with and thus, I asked them about it. THey agreed and said it would be covered by insurance.

Who specifically told you it would be covered by insurance? And by whose insurance?

LeagueOfWolf said:

They got someone out to review the property and assume it was under our bin storage but when they came and dug it out. It was not there

Who got someone out? Did you agree to pay for the work?

LeagueOfWolf said:

...they came into the property and said it seems to be the Water storage that is broken. Thus it is internal.

Who came into the property? What are they saying is broken? Is it indeed broken? Had anyone looked at the broken thing before now?

LeagueOfWolf said:

Now we are having to fork out £5000 (no insurance on our side - I was going to get it AFTER getting all this work done since it wouldn't be covered as its a known issue)

If you didn't have insurance, and you agreed to pay for work to be done, you were always going to have this bill.
What exactly are you looking for help with?

macman

What evidence was there of a leak? Did you do your own flow test to see if there was evidence of a leak downstream from the meter? Did your bills support this?
These letters are simply auto-generated when consumption rises sharply: there can be many reasons for this, besides a leak.