Disputing water bill

[MrJuice]

I live in a Band E house. Semi detached with space on the side. Neighbour lives in a band D house. Also semi but no meaningful space on the side.

Given unmetered water charges are based on some historical rate, he pays less than me. Affinity water told me on the phone that he pays less because of this historical thing which basically informed subsequent council tax bands.

I disputed my bill with affinity because I have a disabled family member and the council have reduced my council tax by one band because of something called disabled band reduction. So I pay band D council tax

Affinity are not budging. They want all £700 from me for unmetered water. Vs much less for my band D neighbour

Do I have a legal case to get them to reduce my bill or just pay? Water bill was £450 when I moved in 7y ago

Grrr

[DanL]

Get a water meter. I pay £22 a month…

[Cats_pyjamas]

As above, we pay around £25/month. Just get a meter.

[Monkeylegend]

As above, my bill more than halved with a meter and I live in a 3 bed, 2 bathroom semi detached bungalow, cos I am posh, and pay £25 per month.

[Sheepshanks]

MrJuice said:

Given unmetered water charges are based on some historical rate, he pays less than me. Affinity water told me on the phone that he pays less because of this historical thing which basically informed subsequent council tax bands.

I guess it's very handy for water companies to work off rateable value as they can then refuse to acknowledge council tax discounts.

Rateable value can't be changed, so, for water charges, that does work in favour of people who've extended their property.


I guess you've looked at likely charges if metered and decided against it.

[Sheets Tabuer]

I have a water meter, paying 75 a month..

House of six.

[MrJuice]

There's only three of us in the property. But it does have a big garden which I intend to water a lot once it's all planted up

So water consumption will go up

I haven't done any calculations. I cannot see what affinity charge per cubic metre at the moment in any case

[MrJuice]

The other thing that really pisses me off is those on benefits pay a capped rate of £120 a year or something

Madness

[Monkeylegend]

MrJuice said:

There's only three of us in the property. But it does have a big garden which I intend to water a lot once it's all planted up

So water consumption will go up

I haven't done any calculations. I cannot see what affinity charge per cubic metre at the moment in any case

Not sure if they still do this but when I moved to a water meter Anglian Water said if I hadn't made a saving over the first year I could go back to unmetered at the original annual charge.

[MrJuice]

You can do that if they are rolling them out

But if you specifically ask them for one then you can't

[Monkeylegend]

OK, but I would be very surprised if you don't make a saving depending on how much you intend to use for the garden of course.

A water meter does focus your mind a lot more on actual usage which must be good thing.

[Sheepshanks]

MrJuice said:

There's only three of us in the property. But it does have a big garden which I intend to water a lot once it's all planted up

So water consumption will go up

I haven't done any calculations. I cannot see what affinity charge per cubic metre at the moment in any case

Ah, I assumed you had high use because you mentioned having a disabled person in the house.

I was going to say it's not exactly difficult to find charges online but Affinitiy's are not exactly straighforward, One thing to bear in mind is that you pay a per cubic rate for water and another amount for sewerage also based on how many cubic metres of water you use.

I stuck it out unmetered until I found out neighbours with meters were paying £35 and I was paying £85. That was a few yrs ago - we pay £45/mth now, don't know what unmetered would be.

[MrJuice]

I have asked GP for a letter to support a case of watersure discount. GP has written the letter - just need to collect.

Watersure basically caps your bills.

This is for disabled people who use a lot of water but annoyingly, some water companies require you to be in receipt of income assessed benefits in addition to the disability.

The disabled person in my household gets DLA and as a direct result of their disability, they use a lot of water. But DLA is not on the list of benefits that qualify under affinity water rules.

This sounds discriminatory to me. Bit like a blue badge only being available if you are disabled and poor rather than just disabled.

What do we think?

[Danm1les]

Surely look at a water meter?

We changed to one and I wash the cars and water the garden constantly, it was far cheaper.

[semisane]

cant you also get a 'sub meter' for garden watering etc which does not attract sewerage charges ?