Water bill higher than neighbours

nat32_2

hi

Can anyone help, my water bill is at least a £100 more than my neighbours. I’m in a semi detached 3 bedrooms. I have raised this with Severn Trent in the past who told me, “my house was built with something more than my neighbours” and the can’t check because they are old rules that they no longer have on record! Is there anything I can do about this?

GingerTim

Some questions:

• Do you and your neighbour both ha e a water meter?
• Is their property the same size as yours?
• How many people live in each household?

QrizB

… told me, “my house was built with something more than my neighbours” and the can’t check because they are old rules that they no longer have on record!

Correct.

Unmetered water bills are generally based on rateable value, which was in turn an assessment of how much your house could be rented for on a specific date. Rateable values were last assessed back in the 1970s, so whichever valuer assessed your house back then thought that your house would cost more to rent than your neighbours houses would.

Is there anything I can do about this?

If you happen to have a time machine, you could travel back to the 1970s and challenge the rateable value that was assigned at that point.

Absent a time machine, you could get a water meter. This will probably halve your water bill.

Bigphil1474

Get a water meter - basic rule of thumb is if there are more bedrooms than people, you will be better off on a water meter. If they can't fit one, they'll put you on a deemed rate based on the number of occupants. Our rateable value water bill was gonna be £1,200 this year, our deemed rate was half that while we waited for the meter to be fitted, and our metered use bill is even less.