apologies ..I am having great difficulty learning how to use the forum.. cannot find appropriate place for this thread.... Please move it where it belongs ! ... Thank you Hi folks, Desperate situation.. I'm hoping someone can advise.... I am living in Wales and own my own home along with the borehole/well, which services the property in adjacent field Back Sept- 2011 I received a letter from a water company claiming that there were going to be ~ CHANGES TO THE OWNERSHIP OF YOUR DRAINS AND SEWERS They stated, " by law, the government has decided that the pipes that go beyond the boundary of the property called " Private sewers and Lateral drains " would be better looked after if they were part of the public sewer network...and the responsibility of your local water and sewerage company... " They stated also, " ~ You Do Not Have To Do Anything the transfer of ownership will happen,automatically. " The letter looked very official along with an enclosed leaflet. I wrote back to them stating, briefly, " I am . NOT your customer and I do not give my consent for you to assume ownership. I, also, told them that I had sent a dated copy of my reply letter to a solicitor, for reference... " The water company, promptly sent me a letter of apology and never bothered me again.... I am now faced with ,yet, another water company, attempting to take over the ownership of my water.. However, unlike the other company they have official Local Council headed paper, they have, already sent me letters, three or four times, asking me to fill out a questionnaire for them... I KNOW, they want to trick me into taking over my water supply, so they can make me PAY for my own water.. .. a farmer told me, this happened to him, and he has, henceforth had to pay for the water supply which is on his land, which, legally ~ Belongs to him, which he ~ Owns ! If these people take over my water supply, or sues me, I'm done for as my financial situation is, already, extremely limited. ..and I am,already, living on the barest minimum possible... This company is threatening me with legal action, and a fine of £5000 if I do not fill out and return the questionnaire to them within 14 days.... What do I do ?

Hi everyone, Havent had to post here for a while now, but this website proved invaluable to me when being persued by Lovell and Co. Here's my new dilemma! In process of selling my home and purchasing new one. Mortgage advisor called me in to inform me there is now a problem with my application. Had previously been approved last year when started looking for new property. I hadn't checked Experian for a while as I knew my credit rating was 974 and classed as excellent. I know how important credit files are, having had bad credit many many years ago, taking me years to even get a basic bank account. I have seen my credit rating increase over the years, and know what causes my rating to dip from time to time...new searches etc. Anyway, to my horror when I checked Experian yesterday, I now have a credit score of 308...very poor!!!! I could have cried. After the initial shock, I found the culprit.... Welsh Water Dwr Cymru. They have reported for the past 3 months a debt of £495 and marked as 'Delinquent'. I was going to ring them up first thing today, but then remembered your advice of doing all correspondence by post /email. I don't believe I am responsible wholly for this debt, as the current property I live in does not have mains water. However I bought another relatives property who had passed away in 2013 and did initially have all the utilities in my name there. Never moved in, just did the property up for letting. The property had been let for the past two years by the same person. They have recently vacated the property just before Christmas. I honestly can't remember if I informed Welsh Water of the new tenant and am wondering if my name is still linked to that property? How do you think I should handle this? I can prove where my current address is and have a copy of the tenancy agreement. If it comes to light that they are still billing me for this property and not in the tenants name, can I be still held responsible for the debt as the landlord? I still have the security deposit for the previous tenant, can this be used to settle any debt? I need to sort this out quickly for obvious reasons and have these defaults removed or I wont be moving!!!!!! Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks.

Hi, I've been trying to despute my water bill with Welsh Water as I feel I'm being over charged. In a recent conversation with a representative I was told that my property was on the lowest tariff I am still paying more than my neighbors & friends in much bigger properties. I pay £32.00 per month but my neighbors are paying between £18.00 & £22.00 per month. Is there a higher complaints procedure I can go through to get myself heard as so far I've been met by unsatisfactory excuses as to why I pay more. Thank you for your time.

Hi, I have a question, I moved into a property around November 2013 and it was a fairly old house needed a bit of tidying up but we were happy as it was cheap £480 PCM. My partner found out she was pregnant around March 2014 and my son was born in the November. I think we finally discovered the problem with the water when he was around 6 months old, and all this time we were using it as normal. We moved out 2-3 weeks ago finally after finding our own place, my question is do I have a right to seek compensation for potential damages to my son and how would I go about this?

Hello I might share a water supply pipe that enters my house, with a neighbour. I live in Wales. I say might as there is no branch pipe to their house in my cellar, so the branch off would have to be under my dining room. their house unlike most in the street, has no external stopvalve in the pavement, and there is no water supply pipe in their cellar [ a tenant of the house and i investigated] my deeds do not show that we have a shared water supply pipe. i have asked the landlord and the water company to determine if they have their own supply pipe, and if they do not to make arrangement. the landlord has not replied. i first alerted them to the shared-pipe possibility in late spring 2015. i intend to replace my water pipes, and for it to feed only my house [if we are indeed on a shared pipe]. the water company is trying to avoid giving the neighbour a new supply, and is giving me laughable guff that the neighbours water supply is my responsibility lololol [ive never heard such nonsense] --- my question/s: 1. i have read that, if the shared supply is not mentioned on my deeds, that i have no legal duty to supply the neighbour with water thru my pipes. i need to quote the statute, or regulation number. what is this please? 2. when i replace my pipe and feed only my house. can the water company get a court order to force me to reattach the old water supply pipe? 3. more generally, how should i proceed thanks Jon

This relates to a previous thread. When you are on a meter????????? http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?354115-Get-a-Rain-Barrel-%28Water-Butt%29 You can also save your grey water for use on your garden. Use a similar water butt system to collect water from your sink and washing machine (bath water would need a pump, and not enough shower water to justify a pump unless flooded with teenagers. Collecting sink water is fine but avoid edible food waste (attracts vermin). Mine goes straight down the loo, small piece only, or else collected in a bag for our dog poo bin. Can't put such waste in a refuse bag cos of our fox problem. I use a simple submersible pond pump ca £30 to pump out into a hose pipe for distribution to the flower beds. Does it smell, slight sniff of washing machine water but it goes after half an hour. My meter consumption is down from 100L/day to I could go completely off drain http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/may/12/humanure-composting-toilets but lets not go down there just yet:-D

If you use electric immersion for your hot water tank, then you will probably have a time switch on it so it uses off peak night rate. This is much cheaper than using your gas boiler. But your hot tank may only have old style insulation, even the spray on foam used by manufacturers is inadequate. I found that by wrapping an additional 6" thick layer fibreglass wool around the tank and taping it up with plastic sheeting made a big difference. How did I know - the difference in temperature drop through out the day, given no usage. I was also able to reduce the thermostat to 40C (much less heat loss than say 65C) which made improvements (take a shower directly without diluting with cold water). For tight areas, use a loose vermiculite, which you can pour down the back of the cylinder. Worked for me:smile:

Hi Guys, I accidentally dropped my iPhone 6 down the toilet about 2 months ago. The damn thing was in my top pocket and slipped out when i bent down to pick something up. Nightmare, as the toilet had bleach in it. I fished the phone out, gave it a very quick rinse, because of the bleach and towel dried it, then stuck it in some rice, as I've heard of people doing this. I called Protect your bubble to start the claim. I left it in there for a day then tried the phone. it was all over the place to start but then began to work properly and continued to do so for the next couple of days, so i cancelled the claim. last week, the phone died after i installed ios9. i took it to the apple store, who opened it up and said that the water damage had finished it off. I explained what happened and they said that they would never replace this phone because of the water damage and more importantly the bleach. I reopened the claim with PYB and sent the phone off to A Novo, who is their repair company. After a few days I called PYB to get an update. they said that the phone is still being repaired. I questioned this because of what Apple said. PYB said that their contract with A Novo was to repair the phone rather than replace and that the phone would be fine. that got me thinking, so I cold called A Novo to get their opinion. They said that they would never repair a water damaged phone, let alone one that had bleach in it. I mentioned PYB and they said that their contract with PYB is to repair 1st and only replace if the phone doesn't pass the 40 point check. They also said that their work is guaranteed for 180 days. Im still waiting for the phone back, which should be Tuesday, so my question is Where do I stand with the repair? My concern is that it may work now but as time goes on , the metallic parts will corrode and the phone may fail outside of the 180 days warranty many thanks EOS-5D

Good afternoon all. This is a bit long winded and concerns my local water supplier, and my lack of water pressure. I live in a top level flat above some shops. My water pressure has been dodgy since I moved in –if either shop below is using the cold supply, my supply is compromised. This wasn’t a massive issue (I’m at work all day and they close before I get home) until a restaurant opened behind my property (in a different set of building across a car park.) It’s open until 10pm at night, and when they are open my cold water supply shuts off completely, but not only that, it’s actually being sucked back into the pipes. For example, if I’m in the shower and they use their water, the water coming from my shower head is forcibly sucked back through and the supply stops completely until they turn their taps off. I spoke to a plumber friend of mine about it and he raised concerns that this could be a legionnaire’s disease risk and should be addressed as soon as possible. I immediately reported the issue to my local supply company. A phone call and a detailed email from me later, they sent one of their field agents out to my house. I asked them to send him during the evening so he could see the issues with the water supply first hand (which caused grumbles as he wanted to come at 8am!). He came around 6pm, put a meter on one of my kitchen taps for a couple of minutes (conveniently when there was no interruption to the supply) and told me I was getting way above the required pressure. I explained again the situation but he was dismissive (although generally pleasant). My plumber friend was with me thankfully, and but his back-up made little difference, and the legionnaires concerns were also dismissed. The agent stated that they only deals with pipes in their ‘area’ and that the pipes etc. beneath the car park (supplying five shops and me) were not their concern (despite them supplying the water). He did say he would dig up a small portion of the car park right by the road to check the pipes (nowhere near my flat!), and if it was obvious there was an issue they would let me know. Around three weeks later I received an email (please note that no digging had taken place at all) to inform me that a meter of some kind was placed across the road (nowhere near my property or the car park in question) and it turns out everyone is getting great water pressure (!!), and if I want something done about my problem I’d have to pay for work to be done myself, including informing all the shops, finding out who owns the car park, etc., etc. My plumber friend now thinks I should inform environmental health. But I’m unsure of what to do. I’m seriously considering just moving house to be honest! So, is there anything further I can do? Has my supplier fulfilled their obligations properly? Is the plumber overreacting? I’m paying £40 a month for my water and am concerned that this constant interruption to my supply will not only damage my washing machine and shower along the way, but also my sanity! Any advice would be gratefully received! Thank you.

I have no idea where to put this post so please feel free to move admin if required Hello Caggers, i need your advice again, now this is potentially a little messy so i will try to keep it as simple as possible. Basically me and my family moved in to our new build social housing property (flat) 5 years ago, we would pay rent and service charges, initially everyone in the block (12 flats) thought that the water rates were included in the rent or services charges so we all signed up for the rest, gas, electric, telephone etc... and didnt worry about the water, fast forward 2 years from there (so now in 2012) and the block heard rumours that the council wanted each flat to start paying water rates and were going to fit water meters for each flat, this never happened and we heard no more. Now from 2012 onward we used to get the odd letter from thames water but it was not addressed to us, it was addressed to a single female (miss xxx) and we are a married couple, we have never heard of this named person before so it either went in the bin or sometimes marked 'not at this address, return to sender' and put back in the post. We did sometimes get a knock at the door (which i simply do not answer if i don't know who it is or not expecting anyone) from baliff looking people. Fast forward again to around March time this year (2015) and the door went again, it was early and i was half asleep so i answered it, the man asked for this Miss xxx, i said look, i have no idea who this person is, we have lived here since the flats were built in 2010 and have never known of this person. The man said ok, no problem, what is your name, So i foolishly told him my name, he then went and that was that. Then some 2 weeks after this visit i get a letter from Thames Water addressed in my name welcoming me as a new customer, I thought at the time ok, so i assume we do have to start paying for water from now on and thats fine, whatever. Then 2 weeks later again i get another letter from thames water stating that i owe £300 odd quid dating back to 2013 (i only got a new customer welcome letter 2 weeks ago lol) so now i am rather confused. and they are sending the usual pay us or else letters, as of today, the balance is around £380. I guess my questions are, what do i do, it would seem this debt was Miss xxx and possibly even from a previous address for all i know, can thames water really send me a welcome letter then 2 weeks later ask for backdated payment by 2 years. I am really quite confused. Apart from the fact i simply do not have the £380 i have 2 children under 6 and am worried they will just shut the supply off Help.

My OH has recently been contacted by these clowns regarding a water rates debt from 2003. There is nothing on her credit file relating to this and it is quite obviously over 6 years old. No contact has been made before now and no acknowledgement or payment has been made. Question is, will a standard statute barred letter be sufficient for this or not? Of course, being SSW they will have taken the matter to court back then and obtained a judgement but can they claim that it isn't statute barred because of an old CCJ? Any advice appreciated as these type of things really do stress her out.

Hello, I would be very grateful for any advice. I live in an apartment building and we have a different supplier for our water and hot water services. The hot water supplier is SWEnergy and they were chosen by the building management and I had no choice but to deal with them. My account has always been up to date with them this far. I received a new bill from them on the 5th of September for £73.99 along with a letter asking me to provide them with an updated meter reading as there was a problem with their automatic computer systems due to a thunderstorm. My bill for the previous month was 81.89 and I paid 100 (I pay manually via bank transfer) and the excess 18 pounds wasn't mentioned in the bill. So I emailed them with image for the meter reading and queried the over payment I made on the same day (07/09). I didn't hear from them and then on the 16th I got another notice for them for payment overdue along with the new bill. The meter reading on the bill was estimated and it was far higher than the meter reading image I had sent earlier. So I wrote back to them yet again, including scans of all the documents and the meter reading yet again . The actual meter reading was 18585 while the bill mentioned current estimated read at 18892 and previous estimated reading at 18637. I pointed this out in the email and asked them to get back to me with the correct amount so that I could pay. Today I came home to find a notice of disconnection. I had previously copied in my estate agents into all the emails, and when I called them, all they said was that they cannot do anything about the issue and the company is a major pain to deal with. They gave me a customer service email which I have written to yet again. I am due to fly out to the USA on the 24th of this month to join my wife as are expecting our first baby and this is not something I wish to be constantly worrying about till I am back which is the 28th of October. They gave me a disconnection date of 6th of October and they do not need access to the property as all the mains are located in communal area. Apart from calling them (and being held on queue for hours) or emailing them - is there anything else I can do at all? I would be very grateful for any advice. Thanks in advance. Alex

Court claim received from water company I have not received a letter before claim from the water company or detailed particulars. I have dealt with a fair claims in my time and on this case i want to build a defence "soley" on the basis that no LBCC has been received. I realise the level of success that this may achieve..... Please can someone help me with some wording for this (i dont really wish to go into details of the claim ) just really basing the defence on what i have mentioned...

Hi And thanks for reading this post. I was looking for accommodation and a friend offered me the upper floor of his shop, the ground floor he is using as a chemist shop. I moved in to the upper floor, fitted in a cooker, fridge, cupboards etc, and was told there would be no water bill as the chemist and the upper floor are on the same supply. I checked this with the stopcock in the cellar which when turned, cut off the supply to the chemist and upper floor simultaneously. I very quickly received a water bill from yorkshire water and it was addresses to : " The Flat 11 South Street..." The chemist is 11 South Street. A few months later a debt collector knocked on the door and demanded £600. I was not at home my mother answered the door and the debt collector frightened her with tales of returning and smashing the door down and taking everything inside. So she paid the bill which, i was not happy about as i do not believe i owe the money. Can you please advise in anyway as what i should do. Thank you. John.

Hi My details have been passed onto a DCA in error by a water company (after a phone call and email to the water company they have written to me confirming their error) is that a breach of my data and what can i do about it. many thanks

Hi there, A while back in June i had a major water leak, basically 50 galls came through the ceiling at a great rate of knots causing significant damage to lounge and bedroom ceiling, subsequently I've had two new ceilings as the old was asbestos (apparently) ..a new boiler and other ongoing internal works.. as we speak. If It were not for that fact i was here at the time of the leak it would have been catastrophic not to mention the flat below, the firemen who attended were none to pleased and reported their findings to the HA as failure to reasonably repair previous damage and works to this property. .. yes the ceiling had been down two years previously.. I've been put out massively, moved my contents in and out of rooms/bedrooms, waiting in needlessly for workmen that don't turn up and been without ceiling x2, no hot water and cold water at various times. My actual expenditure has been 1 meal out due to the flat being uninhabitable literally, and paid for a few boxes i got to store all the clutter that comes with a lifetime, the HA has an online form that i need to fill out, any idea's please, I've lost three days unpaid hols, i definitely think these should be reimbursed. My question is how much compensation should i claim, if any? Thanks

Hi this is my first post and I'm in some need of advice please. I owe Anglian Water around £1700 and they have passed the debt onto Marstons, who ill be honest, we have ignored! As you can imagine they have added their fees and now the bill is for £2753! They have obtained a high court writ against us that is dated 8/1/2015. They have called at our property several times but fortunately we haven't been at home. The last letter we received from them said that as the judgement remains unsatisfied, further enforcement will no doubt be taken against us, and this may take the form of a garnishee order against our accounts, a charging order against any equity in any property , an attachment of earnings order if you are employed or in certain circumstances, bankruptcy. The thing is I can get hold of enough money to pay Anglian water the original £1700 but I can't afford to pay the £2700 that Marstons want! I rang Anglian water and offered to pay what I owe, but after the girl spoke to the debt recovery team, I was advised that any payments should be made to Marstons, as they are handling the account. I told them that my partner is pregnant and that we can't afford to pay what Marstons want and that we would just like to clear our account with yourselves today to get it over and done with as the stress is really starting to affect my partner who is 6 months pregnant. And again they said we had to deal with Marstons Could somebody please advise me on what to do next? If I could have paid it sooner I would have done, but I already have attachments on my earnings and really can't afford anymore. I was unemployed for quite a while and got into lots of trouble financially. I have managed to sort all of them except this one. Thanks in advance

my sister received a demand from intercredit international demanding payment for £1283.16 from her previous address that she moved out off in march 2006. with a start date 1/4/2005. she phoned south staffs water and authorized me act on her behalf because she is disabled and i look after all her affairs i explained that there is an error because all her bills are paid by direct debit and the facts are she moved into the property in May 2003 and a direct debit was set up and moved out March 2006. i myself called them up and stopped the direct debit and set up a new one for the new address still with south staffs. were payment has been taken ever since with no arrears. she told me that they were unaware she had moved out and continued bill the old address as the new tenant did not register themselves at the address. i asked why they had not sent any letters out as i redirected the post for a year. she said she did not know but confirmed there was not arrears on the account until the date of moving out. and would get credit control to call back. credit control called back and said she had readjusted the bill and wanted payment of £144 as she said that whats outstanding. she said the direct debit was cancelled about 10 months earlier. i told her that i,m not going to argue about it because it was a statue barred debt and its paid any way this annoyed her and said not its a statue barred debt as they have been trying to trace her and makes it enforceable. i said well your 3rd party debt collectors found the new address. why couldnt you, she got quite irritate and said they will now use the county court to enforce it if she doesn't the amended bill any thoughts

Hi Just posting this in case something more happens. I am a tenant in a privately rented house which we have lived in now for two and half years. We pay all the utility bills, water, gas, electric ourselves. I receive my water bill by email from Thames Water, and it comes regularly every 6 months in April and October, and I always pay on time. Imagine my surprise to receive an email from Thames Water this morning, informing me that my account is closed, and enclosing the final bill! Strange really as we are still living at the same location and have not notified Thames Water that we are moving so whey have they closed the account and issued a final bill. The only thing I can think of is - prior to renting the house we rented a flat - we notified Thames Water when me moved out (2.5 years ago) and somehow they have put the two events together. I have raised the issue of closing my account with Thames Water and am waiting for their response.

For 2yrs and 5months have been getting calls from SWEL and 3 DCAs trying to recover circa £1200. for some sort of service to a property in Portsmouth. Tracing by SWEL, EOS Solutions UK Plc, UK Search Ltd, and Ruthbridge Ltd. My wife was unlucky to marry into the same Mrs Firstname Lastname as a Miss Firstname Lastname (I believe a widow) and from what I can deduce same DoB. SWEL was notified by email and replied that they would remove our address from the account. There should therefore have been no need to respond when DCAs sent bills, as SWEL will have provided them with correct information wouldnt they? Lol. A month trial of Experian in 2013 showed no alias information on credit report so that was not worth the paper it was written on. My telephone number is listed in my name and whilst I don't answer witheld CLI calls, nor unrecognised callers; the calls are still logged and made available by my provider. The typical behaviour is to call weekdays and Saturday mornings witheldCLI chain dialed up to about 35 calls in a day, plus 1 or 2 calls with a false CLI number such as '678965' or '0000000000' which surprisingly weren't answered or went to voicemail with or without message. The harrassement therefore also creates the extra work collecting the logs, and any voicemails together. The DCAs send out letters and bills threatening to send someone to visit, but sadly they never seem to get around to any action that could have counterclaim. FOI Information from SWEL reveals that SWEL do not check customers identity prior to providing credit for services. This means that they do not actually know which firstname lastname was provided with services. The question therefore arises why pay their bill if you are moving anyway. I spent half a day in 2013 tracing the actual debtor. This took a little time but was quite easy; and I would be prepared to sell the information for decent fee. It became clear that the tracing done on behalf of SWEL amounts to nothing more than searching the CRA databases. In view of the above I am looking to blacklist the calling numbers but there are difficulties - not least is that their numbers benefit from the privacy settings of CLI system which rightly protects the x-directory numbers of individuals; but these companies and Telemarketers should forfeit by the nature of what they are doing. Using Asterisk software, - "If there is no Caller ID received, then the LookupBlacklist has no effect." and to blacklist a false number would be to little avail as the target is moving. Calls having witheld CLI can be normally rejected. We need laws against the presentation of false CLI numbers. We need to allow access to phone numbers used by DCAs and Telemarketers, and Telesurvey companies. We need to be able to communicate with the CRAs without fear of providing ANY information which might be used to add to their collected database. We need legislation that DCA bills or threats MUST be followed up by court action within 1 month or be withdrawn. == Oz

I am currently renting a four bedroom property from Melin homes. The property is just over three and a half years old, I have been living at the property for around two and a half years. The house was built directly in front of a rugby field, all that separates my garden from the rugby field is a fence and a huge bank full of overgrown ferns and nettles which apparently is owned by the rugby club. The back garden gets flooded frequently and despite my numerous complaints, Melin homes has done nothing to rectify the problem. Melin has told me that " we've had a word with our legal team, and its not our responsibility to maintain a water logged garden" I've attached some photos, the last photo is from next doors garden on the same day and as you can see, there is no flooding in their property despite their garden being behind the rugby clubs bank. Can anyone point me in the right direction as to what my rights are regarding this situation, or am I just stuck with a swamp for a back garden? Thanks for you help.

Hello friends, First post so please excuse my very minor knowledge in the matter I need help/advice with. Lat week a bailiff from Crewe county court knocked on my door stating he had a warrant from the court regarding a ccj issued on behalf of United utilities water plc, I said I had no knowledge of the issue and he left, he left a mesage on my answer machine the following day asking me to call him. After reading information from various sites I decided not to call (unsure how I should have proceeded or what I would say) I came home last night and a letter had been hand posted through my door that is essentially a photocopied template with details filled in by hand. It contains yesterdays date (hand written) a claim number (hand written) a warrant number (hand written) the claimant (hand written) the amount of £1,192.08 (hand written) and a stamp that says the bailiffs name, bailiff, Crewe county court and below that a telephone number and a second stamp saying 'URGENT' The writing states that the warrant has been issued for the payment...... ....or removal of your goods to the saleroom unless within 24 hours the above amount is paid into the court office, you will leave me no alternative but to carry out the warrant by re-attending your premises with the auctioneers van and porters to remove your goods to the saleroom to satisy the warrant. You will have to pay additional removal fees and auctioneers costs. The bailiff has never been into the property to levy goods, can he simply turn up to collect goods, especially if I am not there? I feel i must say that this situation is not come about because I simply refuse to pay, it is the net effect of family seperation, and 2 redundancies within the same year that have compounded financial issues. I am a single father of two kids that live with me, I work full time but earnings only cover basic living costs....there is certainaly no lifestyle to talk of. I have a number of other debt issues but this is an immediate problem I am worried about. My car is an old banger and probably has a value of £200 tops but it is essential that i keep it for work commuting and hospital appointments (my youngest has a heart condition and requires regular visits to liverpool chest and heart hospital and alder hey) Could someone please tell me how to proceed, I have almost no assets, live in rented accomadation, and wages dont cover the cost of living ...i have nothing left to pay off debts and they are compounding badly. Last year I let a bailiff in and he levied goods against a council tax bill which I am paying £112.50 a month for to stop him taking items away which means I cannot afford to pay the current tax.. ...as an example of the situation getting worse. I hope this makes sense. Thank you for reading. Mark

Today I called Cymru Water because we have a £300 credit on our bill (we pay £50 a month direct debit) and wanted to adjust our direct debit since we had such a large credit. The rep immediately said our meter must be slowing down since we have 7 people in our house and were apparently using too little water for that many people. (possibly correct) So they are going to replace the water meter. Oops, darn, but oh well. Our problem is this: They say that once the new meter is installed, they will check the readings every few weeks and then use these numbers to 'correct' our past bill (up to 7 years). We are arguing over this because we do not feel they should be able to guess what our usage was for the past year or two and make us pay for their meter possibly slowing down. They have no way of going back in time and knowing exactly how much water was used. It was their mistake and while we have no problem ensuring that we pay what we use from now on, we are angry that the company can just say 'we think you used this much water while your meter was slowing down so give us the money.' And since we have a £300 credit, they will take it from that. The rep said they would generally not make a customer go negative on their bill. I asked for a refund of our credit then and they do not appear to plan on giving it to us. Can Cymru Water back bill us on guesstimate of water usage and not an accurate reading of the meter?

Hi, I'd like to introduce myself im a new member to the forum but I have been reading for ages as I have a few credit file issues that I would like to get some advice on and I will post them in the relevant sections. My 1st problem on my credit file that I have checked about a month ago relates to an Essex and Suffolk Water Bill dating back to 2003. I moved in with my mother sometime in 2004 when I was 20 years old, and these were the times when you still needed a utility bill to open any kind of account so my mother said as I was living there and of the correct age I could put the water bill in my name. This was sometime in 2004. I then moved out of the house into another place with some friends and set up my own new accounts, including council tax which I still have bills for, and for the last 11 years I have been living at various different rented accommodations. My mother recently moved out of the address and informed me she couldnt remember ever paying a water bill there even though it had been over 10 years since. The last time Essex Water had been contacted by anyone at that address was the name change I done in 2004. And now in 2014 I have a default registered for this address for £3500 with a default date of late 2014. So they have defaulted the account after 10 years. Could someone give me some advice: 1) I have not lived there or had any contact with them in over 10 years is this default fair and correct? 2) Essex Waters own website says if you dont pay a bill after 90 days they will issue a default, this is some 10 years. 3) Should Essex Water have closed this account ages ago after no contact? 4) How do I go about sorting this out? I am willing to do all it takes to remove this from my file as it is a joke. I am quite competent when it comes to writing letters or filling in court forms so if I have to take this further legally I am quite willing to do so. Could anyone tell me where I should start, should I start by writing to them directly and asking that they remove the default on various grounds, and re-issue the bill in the correct name which would be my mother. She has health issues but would be willing to pay as it was her house. I think it could be sorted out with a bit of common sense but I know that these companies can be unwilling to even discuss common sense. I also have access to tenancy agreements for myself on other properties at the time I was allegedly liable, the landlords of the said address would be willing to testify that I was not living there, as they were regularly in the house, council tax bills for the address with me not on there as I wasnt living there etc etc. Any advice or info is greatly appreciated...and I look forward to talking to all members who are interested in this.... Thanks

In the course of examining our church accounts I noticed that there was a huge difference in water charges for the 2 Anglican churches in our Parish. The lower charge is for the church without mains drainage. The other church has meters water and used only 9 cubic metres last year. As a domestic consumer I use about 110 cubic metres. Because it is classed as non-domestic the church pays a standing charge of £144 pa compared with £87 for me. This seems grossly unfair. Can we challenge this charge?