Today's Water Bill story

I went down this route with United Utilities in 2008 after I realised the roof drainage went into soakaways. They claimed that their records didn't need to cover surface drainage on properties before 1997.

There was a fact sheet, which contained a claim form. They reckoned they needed to do an inspection before accepting the claim, but in the event I don't think they ever bothered. They accepted the claim from that point, and reduced the bill.

I tried to claim for the previous years, but they refused, stating "one of the conditions of the claim scheme is that reductions in charge can only be applied from the beginning of the charging year in which we received the claim."

I had better things to do with my time than chase it further, but it's a nice little earner for United Utilities!

This article is from our news archive. As a result pictures or videos originally associated with it may have been removed and some of the content may no longer be accurate or relevant.