Thames Water

The jokers that have been billing us estimated bills on a metered flat and want £1200 (even though the meter reading would be a quarter of that) have given us £400 back for inconvenience and delays, but now the bill is £1400 :D

We have a new meter but they took meter readings off the old one. Why can't they bill us based on the meter readings?

Oh, they also didn't bill us for the last 5 years which is why we had a £1200 bill in the first place.

Basically, they're total "shisters" (look it up) and I'm not paying their demands until I see a bill calculated off my meter readings and not some numbers they're pulling out of their arses.

If you start a dispute they should pause charges until it’s sorted. Call them every day to complain and you’ll go to the top of the list. Don’t do it by email or chat. Trust me on this.

Does the retrospective billing code apply to water services

The dispute has been going since March this year. They keep opening and closing the cases.

It was complicated by new kitchen and the removal of two meters but the fact is they fucked our billing since at least 2017 and they owe me money not the other way around.

I don't know what that is. They have been billing us estimated instead of using our meter readings for years. I've blindly paid but then we didn't get a bill for 4-5 years and then got a 1200 quid bill. That's when we noticed our bills have been estimated since 2017 but I don't have any older bills.

Oh yeah, the meters they had on record weren't our meters!

We had a guy visit and take readings months ago before they were removed but they've still not adjusted the bill. He said it all went tits up when they changed billing supplier about 5 years ago...

https://www.ofwat.gov.uk/households/your-water-bill/metering/#:~:text=Often%20the%20water%20meter%20is,how%20to%20read%20your%20meter.

Meter reading
If you have a water meter, it should be read at least once a year, and read by your water company at least once every two years. Some water companies might read your meter more frequently. Often the water meter is installed so that your company can read the meter remotely.

They can’t simply carry on with an estimated reading as over time it will creep up.
I’d try to get them to fit a smart meter so that they can remotely read it and then work back to find you previous usage.
You could try to get them to charge you the unmetered rate, but if you are good with water use that may cost you even more.
Threaten them with OFWAT and se if that helps.

Just a thought.
Have you got any readings on your bills that are marked as actual that are higher than the physical reading you can see? If you have that’s technically fraud. And they literally shit a brick and get it sorted pdq.

We have a smart meter now (that was a whole other ball ache) but that's not the issue. The issue is that since maybe 2017 they've not read the meter, not billed us and now they want £1500.

We have photos of OUR final meter readings from the old meters (and TW had sent a guy so they should have readings) and the charges would be in the hundreds of pounds not 1500 and that's not counting the bills I had paid up until that date.

So they basically owe me money, not the other way around.

We can't get any bills from them older than 2017. I don't know why that's the limit.

All the bills from 2017 are estimated, even though we have had meters installed since 2012.

Our second last bill was Nov 2019 and it was also an estimated bill.

Our last bill was March 2024 for £1600 (again, estimated)

The final meter readings didn't even add up to £1600 worth of water according to the guy that took the numbers.

Tell them that you want to escalate it and are contacting OFWAT. Ultimately they will back down and wave the bill. They can only work from the new meter as there is no way of knowing if there was an issue with the old meters. Or even if they were estimating on the correct ones. Give them the olive branch of saying you expect to have to pay something just not £1,200.