For some time I had been concerned about our high water usage in our (old) house. Usage had been rising steadily for a couple of years and I became convinced there was an issue with the supply.
After several long calls, I managed to get Thames Water to take a meter reading and it agreed it was unusually high and said it would investigate. An engineer suggested there might be a shared supply – the house was in the middle of a Victorian terrace. This proved to be the case, which was reported back to Thames Water in November 2019.
The meter had been fitted prior to us buying the house in October 2011, so for eight years we’d been paying for our water and a neighbour’s two doors up.
I am expecting a sizeable rebate, but Thames Water just fobs me off. We sold the house in December, so have had to ask the new occupiers to hold off taking over the supply while the company looks into it. We also can’t start an account on our new property. I am hitting a brick wall.
AP, Wallingford, Oxfordshire
Thames Water agreed to look at your case again and tells us: “We’ve agreed to backdate charges for the eight years they lived at the property. We understand the frustration this has caused and are sorry for the time it took to reach the right decision.”
This means you have paid out around £2,800 on water while living at the property from 2011, yet have been offered a refund of only £797 to cover the excess you were charged until the account was closed in early December last year.
Your high usage was because of the shared supply with the neighbouring property. TW says the average usage (depending on the number of occupants) for a two-bed property is about 430 litres a day. But as it was not able to determine your exact consumption, it has based its revision on a daily usage of 300 litres a day. It says this works out at £222, way below average.
But we don’t think its settlement reflects the financial hardship you have experienced or the stress and knock-on effects of resolving it. In a vague nod of reassurance, TW says your new account will be unmetered so you will receive fixed bills.
You could follow its official complaints procedure and, if that fails, take your case to the Consumer Council for Water.
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