Revised Water bill issued for last 3 years

Its_all_Dinx

Hi everyone.

I need some maybe alot of help and advise please.

Here is the story.

The in-laws live in a 4 bed house but only 2 rooms in use.  I asked a few years if they have a water meter. They showed me letter of the meter being fitted and the serial number.   They where told that for one year they will get bills showing what it would have  cost if they where on a meter and that after a year they will move to a water bill regardless.   the year went by and one day they cried and said that there water bill has gone up by £50 a month.   I asked if I can see and it showed them as a non meter customer.

I rang Thames Water complain saying that this is unfair you never gave them a chance nor did you send bills to show what it could have cost.   they told me they the meter wasn't switched on but they can turn it on remotely.

Instead what Thames Water did was refunded all the money paid from the date the meter was fitted and then billed them again using the Meter Reading.  they now were in debt as a result.  the bill shows them they used alot more water. ( I don't remember what price the units are charged at)

What can they do.  if you need more info please do ask.   it's around £3000 for the 3 years.

Hoenir

Its_all_Dinx said:

The in-laws live in a 4 bed house but only 2 rooms in use.  

Has no relevance to the amount of water that could be potentially used. Might water a large garden everyday in the summer. 

Its_all_Dinx

I also forgot one other thing,  they do get benefits,  I did read they are entitled to get some discount I believe but I am not 100% what type of benefits they get and what would trigger a discount.

QrizB

Its_all_Dinx said:

What can they do.  if you need more info please do ask.   it's around £3000 for the 3 years.

If their metered water bill is £3000 more than their previous rateable value bill, their meter must be recording a huge amount of water use. Most people have their bills by being metered.

Do your parents have a water leak? Have they (or you) carried out the usual checks?

Bigphil1474

Normally when you go on to a meter you have the option of going back to a rateable bill if the meter bill is higher, within the first 2 years. I think you've only got half the story some how. If the meter wasn't switched on for 3 years how could they know how much water they used? 
You'll probably have to look at what payments have been made over the 3 years, what bills were issued etc. and there are some schemes for low income households. You might be best going to see Citizens advice.

matelodave

Generally a water meter just records the flow, it doesnt get switched on or off so it would have been recording since it was installed. More than likely they havent been reading it either physically or remotely if that's possible with the meter in question.

You can go and read the meter yourself to see how much it has recorded since it was installed (assuming that it was zero when it was put in) you can then do your own sums to see how much it should have cost.

Assuming that the meter has been there for three years and the average consumption per person is reckoned to be around 55 cu.m a year then unless they have several baths a day, water the garden every day or otherwise use excessive amounts of water you'd expect the meter to be reading somewhere around 400cum.

where I live (Anglian Water) 400cu.m over the past three years would have cost around  £1500 or less, however unmetered 3 years would have been well over £2000

As said above, the number of rooms they've got is irrelevant, however if there's an unnoticed leak from a toilet, cistern, dripping tap etc or even an underground pipe then the volume of water could be quite considerable.

You can do a check by ensuring that everything in the house is turned off and then check that the meter isn't moving. Most meters have a little cog in the middle that turns when water flows and its pretty sensitive and it should not move at all when everything is turned off.

see the video below

Robin9

Are you able to read your meter.   You Tube link as below helps.

https://youtu.be/5VNqhSHhAsU?si=jkoOAO8T5kBHmjAp