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Shared water supply
Comments
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the freeholder does not get involved in this as they are hands off and the two leaseholders sort it out between themselves. the upstairs owner said they had their meter fitted inside their property, which is a smart meter by the water company and they get billed directly by the water company every 6 months.
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they said that the water company fitted an internal smart meter so they get billed directly.
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i think the ideal scenario would be that my FIL is charged on a fixed charge rather than water meter and the upstairs get charged for their useage. My FIL has just moved in so he hasn't yet received the bill from the water company. I am hoping that it will be charged on a fixed charge rate, in which case it doesn't matter so much about the shared supply.
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Has he got an online account set up yet? If so, it should say what his billing arrangement will be. But it might be safer to wait and see rather than contacting the company, as it is possible he will be set up with an arrangement which is cheaper than that the company might want him to be on if they knew the full circumstances.
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Who installed the other meter - the WB?
Does your FIL have a stopcock inside his flat so he can shut off his own supply? I presume he has, in which case his meter would be installed immediately after that.
The main supply pipe may well go 'through' your FIL's flat to get to the one above, but your FIL should have a 'tee' off this pipe to serve only his property. Does he?
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he has completed the move in form with the water company but that was only last week so haven't heard anything back from them yet.
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yeah, the upstairs neighbour said the water board installed a smart water meter inside their flat when they bought it 3 years ago.
that is a good point about the stopcock. he has a stopcock yes, so technically speaking, the water company could install a meter just after his stopcock. there is nothing there at the moment.
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In which case it is probably best to sit tight and see what they come up with. He won't know if having a meter will be cheaper until he knows what the existing charging arrangement is and how much he'll get charged.
Having shared pipework can be a PITB, but so long as he isn't paying for the neighbour's water the hassle/cost isn't likely to be worth doing anything about it.
If he is forced into having a meter then it would be worth checking to make absolutely sure 'his' pipework doesn't supply the neighbour in any way - i.e. don't assume everything downstream of his stopvalve is exclusively supplying him. Older/converted buildings can have unusual arrangements.
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Yes, in the property I own, the downstairs stopcock turns the water off for the upstairs property too.
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it is a semi that has been converted into two one bed flats, one upstairs and one downstairs back in 1969. back in those days, they wouldn't have had a water meter so it would have been based on a fixed rate.
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