No idea how to pay for my water.

44fox44

Its going to sound pretty dumb but please bear in mind that never before have I been responsible for paying any utilities myself.
I moved into a rented 2bedroom flat march 07 and I just moved out 2weeks ago, there was no gas in the flat so everything was straight forward, electricity and counsel tax. I did contact Thames water when I moved in but was unable to setup an account with them because they said the flat was under some sort of a housing association.
Pretty dense of me but I never bothered with it again.

Now heres the problem, I cant get my deposit for the flat back until I can prove that I paid for water. I contacted Thames water again, trying to find out how much i owe but they said the same thing again and they couldn't give me the companies name or contact details who's responsible for the whole block of flats due to Data protection or something.
I contacted the estate agent and the owner of the property's agent
, neither of them had any idea.
I've also searched all over the internet hoping that I can locate the company but I had no luck.


Please note that I have a lot of debt, i had multiple defaults 3 years back and I'm still in the process of repaying it all, so this whole issue is not good for my stress levels, I feel today like i felt 3 years back. I urgently need the £1k deposit back.

I really hope someone can help me with some information.
Here is the details of the property

Ibex House
1 Forest Lane
Startford
London
E15 1HR

littlemissjojo

44fox44 wrote: »

Its going to sound pretty dumb but please bear in mind that never before have I been responsible for paying any utilities myself.
I moved into a rented 2bedroom flat march 07 and I just moved out 2weeks ago, there was no gas in the flat so everything was straight forward, electricity and counsel tax. I did contact Thames water when I moved in but was unable to setup an account with them because they said the flat was under some sort of a housing association.
Pretty dense of me but I never bothered with it again.

Now heres the problem, I cant get my deposit for the flat back until I can prove that I paid for water. I contacted Thames water again, trying to find out how much i owe but they said the same thing again and they couldn't give me the companies name or contact details who's responsible for the whole block of flats due to Data protection or something.
I contacted the estate agent and the owner of the property's agent
, neither of them had any idea.
I've also searched all over the internet hoping that I can locate the company but I had no luck.


Please note that I have a lot of debt, i had multiple defaults 3 years back and I'm still in the process of repaying it all, so this whole issue is not good for my stress levels, I feel today like i felt 3 years back. I urgently need the £1k deposit back.

I really hope someone can help me with some information.
Here is the details of the property

Ibex House
1 Forest Lane
Startford
London
E15 1HR

ok, firstly, the call centre agents you are speaking to are basically just following data protection laws - as there is no account in your name, they cant give you details of any account they have for the property. If they are telling you there is one account for all the flats and it is billed to a housing association or suchlike, then I would assume that there is one water meter serving the whole building which they are paying for and passing on that charge through a service charge to the individual occupiers of each flat.

So who were you paying your rent to? Landlord, managing agent, housing association? Were you paying any kind of separate service charge? What did your tenancy agreement say regarding water?

Also, call back to TW and ask them to send you a letter confirming that you were not responsible for the water charges. Hopefully you can then show that to the landlord and get your deposit back. I do find it strange though that the landlord was not aware of the fact that someone else is paying for the water!

Good luck!

birchscrub

I hope you've kept your contract - check it cos it should say if you are responsible or not. Otherwise when you talk to Thames water again be really clear about what you want - a letter saying that you were not responsible for the bill because they have someone else on the record.