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A report forecasts that we'll all be metered within 25 years. But, as Sam Dunn reports, that could mean picking up someone else's usage, too
An overflow of water meter billing problems, where one neighbour ends up paying for another's water, is putting rising numbers of customers out of pocket.
Cash readers are among the estimated thousands who report a struggle to convince their water supplier that they are wrongly paying for next door's water bill.
Problems usually begin when either a new meter, or adjustment to an existing meter, ends up in a bodged connection - often to a shared meter - that leads to grossly inflated bills mailed to the wrong address.
Last week, a report from the Environment Agency said it expected almost every household in England and Wales to be fitted with a water meter over the next 25 years.
Louise Morton from Gloucester is one householder who has struggled for more than 12 months to persuade an official from Severn Trent, her water supplier, just to visit her home; when they did, they conceded that she'd been paying for a neighbour's use for the past year. "I first received a huge jump in my bill to roughly £300, a demand greater than for a family living across the road," says the 32-year-old, who lives on her own. "I was then asked to pay £35 a month instead of £13, so I asked them to come and check the meter, but they refused to unless I performed a 'flow test' to check the water flow."
However, to do that, Morton would have had to wrench off an iron cover outside. "I couldn't open it at all," she says.
She was out of pocket for months until Severn Trent refunded her overpayments. Although the company disputes her version of events, it has given her a £30 "gesture of goodwill" for the inconvenience. Still unhappy at her treatment, she has escalated her complaint to a "second stage" status.
Internet chat rooms have been overflowing with complaints. Last month, a BBC Watchdog online discussion saw plenty vent their spleen against indifferent water companies after the consumer programme highlighted an egregious case of a family wrongly billed chased aggressively for payment.
"We have had a classic example of incompetence, courtesy of Thames Water ... we received a water bill for our neighbour's water supply as, instead of fitting our water meter, they replaced his water meter with the one intended for our house," said one internet user. "And, of course, a couple months later, they still have not fully rectified the situation."
A second suffered even worse luck: "From a rateable value of £17-ish a month as a single person, at the water company's suggestion I went on to a water meter. After three months I got a bill for over £1,400 from Mid Kent Water. I was paying for my three neighbours and a water leak that wasn't mine. After five months, it was sorted but it was very stressful." And a third have had eight years of paying somebody else's bills: "Have just found out that the meter fitted at our house in 2001 has been fitted to a pipe also supplying our next door neighbour and we have been paying for their water! Will be putting my pen to paper ... to try to write a letter to Three Valleys Water."
Even the Consumer Council for Water, the government-funded consumer body for the water industry that helps investigate disputes, highlighted water meter billing as an area where customer service has fallen by the wayside in its annual report last year.
A customer in Colchester received a £2,124 rebate after discovering he'd been paying his, and his neighbour's bills, for nine years, it said; despite his requests and worries about a leak, not a soul emerged from Anglian Water to visit his home where they would have "discovered [he] was on a shared supply and the meter was registering consumption for his and his neighbour's properties".
Water regulator Ofwat publishes annual complaint figures about low water pressure, missed appointments and failure to restore supply during an appointed slot, but doesn't bother to with meter-related complaints; it leaves that to the CCWater instead.
Last year, the consumer watchdog recorded some 12,163 water meter complaints received by water companies - a 2% rise from 11,893 the year before - and making up roughly 4.5% of all written complaints. This excludes all telephone complaints.
Ofwat says that water meter billing problems haven't yet proved enough of an endemic problem for them to be listed on the so-called "guaranteed standards scheme" (GSS); this triggers a small payout, not usually more than £25 for a standard problem, for a breach of what the government describes as a "minimum standard of service".
For example, if a water supplier fails to give the right notice of a temporary cut in supply, it must pay £20 to each affected property. However, if the water supplier makes a mistake, as in the case of Morton and wrongly bills for over a year because of its own bungling behaviour, the customer is - as yet - not entitled to any payout.
If you have a dispute over your bill, first write to your supplier. If you don't receive a proper and comprehensive reply within 10 working days, you're entitled to £20. If you're still not happy, contact CCWater at ccwater.org.uk where you can also get a rundown of regional CCWater telephone numbers.
...#9632; Have you had protracted problems with your water company? Have you switched to a meter only to find your bills are higher? Or has having a meter saved money? Let us know your views by writing to us at Cash, The Observer, King's Place, 90 York Way, London, N1 9GU or email us at cash@observer.co.uk.
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