Water Charges / Tax / Demonstrations / Irish Water / Meter Installations etc etc

runawaybishop

Viriconia wrote: »

Hi

Moved out of a house there recently, and during the time there did not sign up for or pay Irish Water. Received letters addressed only to 'The Occupier'.

Have moved out now, but the landlord is holding the deposit for payment of the water charges. Just wondering now what the situation is with Irish Water, I can't seem to find any clear information on it any more other than it's suspended now?

He'll probably hold on to that part of it until the bill is paid, or cancelled.

Bob24

Viriconia wrote: »

Hi

Moved out of a house there recently, and during the time there did not sign up for or pay Irish Water. Received letters addressed only to 'The Occupier'.

Have moved out now, but the landlord is holding the deposit for payment of the water charges. Just wondering now what the situation is with Irish Water, I can't seem to find any clear information on it any more other than it's suspended now?

The charges will only be suspended once the Dail votes a legislation to do so (until this happens, Irish Water has a legal obligation to charge for the service). Since this is worded as a being suspension, any water bill issued before the legislation is amended will most likely still be due to Irish Water.

So basically if your landlord doesn't get you to pay this will become a charge attached to their property.
i.e. I doubt they will return your full deposit unless you can prove you have paid the charges.

salad_man

My partner and I have moved apartment this week, ending our tenancy early and reassigning it to a couple of friends who were looking in the area. No problems there. We have moved to a house share with a couple of friends. During the landlords’ inspection when we handed over the keys, water charges were brought up.

I have not paid the last bill we received (which was for period October – December 15) as when it was issued was the time when the saga started and it was apparent that the charges may be scrapped. It was about a 90euro bill. I had paid all bills prior to this.

The landlord has explained that this is to be paid as there would be outstanding charges on the account when we transfer it over to new tenants. They had threatened that if it wasn’t paid it would be taken from our deposit. Water charges were in the lease agreement we signed but wondering does anything change given the current situation.

Obviously I am very reluctant to pay it as at the moment it seems it would be dead money.

Has anyone any advice on my predicament?

Bob24

salad_man wrote: »

My partner and I have moved apartment this week, ending our tenancy early and reassigning it to a couple of friends who were looking in the area. No problems there. We have moved to a house share with a couple of friends. During the landlords’ inspection when we handed over the keys, water charges were brought up.

I have not paid the last bill we received (which was for period October – December 15) as when it was issued was the time when the saga started and it was apparent that the charges may be scrapped. It was about a 90euro bill. I had paid all bills prior to this.

The landlord has explained that this is to be paid as there would be outstanding charges on the account when we transfer it over to new tenants. They had threatened that if it wasn’t paid it would be taken from our deposit. Water charges were in the lease agreement we signed but wondering does anything change given the current situation.

Obviously I am very reluctant to pay it as at the moment it seems it would be dead money.

Has anyone any advice on my predicament?

As mentioned before water charges haven't been suspended yet, and once the legislation is brought in to suspend them it will only affect future usage, not past one.

Having said that from what you said I gather you registered with IW under your name as you paid previous bills?

If it is the case, you are the person legally liable to pay the charges and not your landlord, so it shouldn't be his problem whether you pay or not.

So in summary:
- If your name is registered with IW for that address your LL is legally off the hook to pay the charges and there is not real reason for them to with withhold the money (Irish Water and their collection agents will chase you, not the landlord). Having said that and even if they are off the hook, since your lease mentions you have to paid the charges, they might legally be entitled to withhold the amount as you are non-compliant with the contract you singed with the landlord .
- If you are not registered with IW, the charges will be attach the property and haunt the landlord until he pays them, in that case I doubt he will let you get away without paying (either directly or by proxy via a deduction from your deposit).

In any case, if you were registered with IW, do inform them you have moved out as there might be one more bill before the suspension of the charges is effective and if yo uare not living them any-more you shouldn't be responsible for paying it.

Michael D Not Higgins

salad_man wrote: »

Has anyone any advice on my predicament?

The charges are legal and you owe them. Pay the charges. This is the only advice as advocating non payment is advising illegal behaviour which is against the charter of this forum and Boards as a whole.

dudara

salad_man wrote: »

My partner and I have moved apartment this week, ending our tenancy early and reassigning it to a couple of friends who were looking in the area. No problems there. We have moved to a house share with a couple of friends. During the landlords’ inspection when we handed over the keys, water charges were brought up.

I have not paid the last bill we received (which was for period October – December 15) as when it was issued was the time when the saga started and it was apparent that the charges may be scrapped. It was about a 90euro bill. I had paid all bills prior to this.

The landlord has explained that this is to be paid as there would be outstanding charges on the account when we transfer it over to new tenants. They had threatened that if it wasn’t paid it would be taken from our deposit. Water charges were in the lease agreement we signed but wondering does anything change given the current situation.

Obviously I am very reluctant to pay it as at the moment it seems it would be dead money.

Has anyone any advice on my predicament?

Water charges have not yet been suspended, and therefore the invoice you received is a valid invoice, which should be paid in accordance with the outlined payment terms. You should also inform IW of the date that you ceased tenancy, as you don't want to accrue further water charges in your name.

beaner92

I am moving out of my apartment and my landlord in charging me 11e a month for the water bill.
I just wanted to check i moved in febuary the 6th, should the water bill be 11e per month. There is 2 of us in the apartment...i assumes he pays the other 11...im leaving end of may...of it would be 44e for 4 months water charges.

is this in anyway accurate?

tuisginideach

Capped at €260 p.a. for 2 adult household as far as I know i.e. €130 each so €11 p.m. is exactly right I would think.

Lishy79

Sorry for hassling ye with this but I've only just registered with boards and I'm hoping to get some information on the water charges situation.....I know, have I been in a cave for the last couple of years right!!!

Well I guess I was just ignoring it until recently.

My story :

I've been renting a room in a house share in an apartment since Nov'14. My name is not on the lease as it is a rolling contract and the management company would not put me on the lease. My flat mate has been there for 3 years previous to me moving in and is one of the original tenants, her name is on the lease. Irish water contacted her about registering before I ever moved into the property. She chose to ignore it and kept chucking the letters in the bin.....myself and the other person in the apartment were non-the-wiser to these letters.

So about xmas time in 2015 I started getting letters from Irish water (but they had my first name spelled wrong on the envelope). Thought nothing of it and spoke to my flat mates about it and they said to just chuck it. None of them were in agreement with the water charges and were not going to pay anyway....I sure as hell was not going to be paying for all of them, and besides I hadn't registered with them so how are they sending me letters, warnings and monthly bills. They even got my email address from somewhere and have been sending me emails about my water bills. As far as I was concerned I was not registered with any one at that address. I was having all my post sent to my family home because this was not a supposed to be a long term situation.

Now I have moved out of the apartment (19 months later), but technically I'm paid up until the middle of June. My flat mates have all decided to leave too (within the next month) so didn't bother advertising the room to rent in order for me to get my deposit back. They gave their months notice to the management company today and were told that the water charges had to be paid or they would be deducted from my deposit.

My question is to anyone on here that may have experienced the same thing with their rental accommodation....."What did ye do to get out of it, or what did ye do?" I didn't think a landlord OR management company could keep back money from a deposit in order to clear a bill, the bill belong to the person in residence at the time of the bill, not the new tenant. Will they follow me and add the bill onto my new accommodation??

Bob24

Probably not what you want to hear, but in one a sentence: if you and your flatmates haven't registered with IW the charges will be attached to the LL's property for life. So he won't let you get off the hook and you will either pay the bills or have the amount deduced from your deposit. No other legal course of action from your perspective.

Ms Doubtfire1

question...LL has the house registered as a farm and receives single farm payment for it (or basic payment as it's now called)..As such, he (or better me) pays for the water.However, as per the news, water charges have now been halted until end of this year and I am reluctant to fork out for something I shouldn't be paying.LL is chancing his arm on a lot of things lately so I am getting a tad annoyed. Any thoughts? Should I continue paying watercharges even though I am NOT registered for it? (bills are in his name)

Bob24

Ms Doubtfire1 wrote: »

question...LL has the house registered as a farm and receives single farm payment for it (or basic payment as it's now called)..As such, he (or better me) pays for the water.However, as per the news, water charges have now been halted until end of this year and I am reluctant to fork out for something I shouldn't be paying.LL is chancing his arm on a lot of things lately so I am getting a tad annoyed. Any thoughts? Should I continue paying watercharges even though I am NOT registered for it? (bills are in his name)

Charges are only suspended for domestic properties. Commercial properties have always been charged for their water and will keep being. So if the farm is registered as a commercial property (or mixed commercial/residential if things were done by the books), the LL will keep being charged. This might be why they want you to keep paying.

Having said that and assuming you are just living in the property and not carrying out any commercial activity yourself, it isn't really your problem. I don't see why you should pay once the suspension is effective for domestic charges.

fyfe79

"Free leak investigation"

Hi folks,

I have not paid for my water charges and have not engaged Irish Water. However, back in May I got a letter from them saying that I possibly have a leak on my property and they will investigate and repair free of charge. Now, I'm sure there isn't a leak. In late April, one of my kids left the outside tap running (connected to a hose and placed into the drain) and we didn't notice it for about 6 hours. So we're pretty sure this is where the high reading came from which indicated a leak.

Anyway, since then IW have sent 3 more letters including one this week which says that if I don't engage in the next few days, they may take legal action in the form of a statutory notice. Has this happened to anyone? Basically I don't want to engage them with this as it might legitimise them as my water provider, especially when I know I don't have a leak.

Are they likely to issue a statutory notice if I ignore, or will they see my water usage return to normal and forget about it? Or if I avail of the free check, am I in affect signing up as their customer?

aido79

fyfe79 wrote: »

"Free leak investigation"

Hi folks,

I have not paid for my water charges and have not engaged Irish Water. However, back in May I got a letter from them saying that I possibly have a leak on my property and they will investigate and repair free of charge. Now, I'm sure there isn't a leak. In late April, one of my kids left the outside tap running (connected to a hose and placed into the drain) and we didn't notice it for about 6 hours. So we're pretty sure this is where the high reading came from which indicated a leak.

Anyway, since then IW have sent 3 more letters including one this week which says that if I don't engage in the next few days, they may take legal action in the form of a statutory notice. Has this happened to anyone? Basically I don't want to engage them with this as it might legitimise them as my water provider, especially when I know I don't have a leak.

Are they likely to issue a statutory notice if I ignore, or will they see my water usage return to normal and forget about it? Or if I avail of the free check, am I in affect signing up as their customer?

You don't have to engage with them to be their customer. They are responsible for supplying water to your house so you are their customer whether you agree with it or not.
Who do you think supplies water to your house?
There's unsurity about whether charges will be reintroduced but the abolition of Irish is not even on the agenda.
I really can't understand your stance on not engaging with them to check if you have a leak to be honest and save yourself a whole lot of uneccessary hassle.
I have no idea if they will go through with the statutory notice but if they do will you still try to fight it?

fyfe79

"Signing up as their customer" was the wrong phrasing. Of course I know they supply the water and they consider everyone connected to a mains supply as their customer. I meant more that by engaging I was consenting to be their customer willingly, which is not something I wanted to do. I'll probably contact them, tbh.

Bob24

fyfe79 wrote: »

I have not paid for my water charges and have not engaged Irish Water. However, back in May I got a letter from them saying that I possibly have a leak on my property and they will investigate and repair free of charge. Now, I'm sure there isn't a leak. In late April, one of my kids left the outside tap running (connected to a hose and placed into the drain) and we didn't notice it for about 6 hours. So we're pretty sure this is where the high reading came from which indicated a leak.

While not 100% sure, I think the modern enough meters they have deployed are a bit smarter than declaring there is a leak just because a tap was open for 6 hours. I believe they would rather trigger a leak alarm if there is a constant flow of water going through them.

tomasrojo

Bob24 wrote: »

While not 100% sure, I think the modern enough meters they have deployed are a bit smarter than declaring there is a leak just because a tap was open for 6 hours. I believe they would rather trigger a leak alarm if there is a constant flow of water going through them.

I contacted them about low water pressure, and I got the impression that leak detection is indeed more like looking for a never-ending flow, however small.

L1011

fyfe79 wrote: »

Basically I don't want to engage them with this as it might legitimise them as my water provider,

They are your water provider. Non-engagement does not change that. The "consent" argument is discredited nonsense.

6 hours of a tap running will not generate sufficient usage to suggest a leak. It is likely you have an underground leak which could be causing huge damage to your property long term in the form of subsidence etc.

Take a look at the readout on your meter. If its very high, you have a leak. If it has the litres readout (some only show thousand litres), turn off the stopcock and see if it keeps moving. If it does, you have a leak.

tomasrojo

L1011 wrote: »

They are your water provider. Non-engagement does not change that. The "consent" argument is discredited nonsense.

Yes, there are legitimate criticisms of Irish Water, but it's important not to succumb to Irish Water Derangement Syndrome. E.g. we should leave the EU if water charges aren't dropped.

seamus

fyfe79 wrote: »

"Signing up as their customer" was the wrong phrasing. Of course I know they supply the water and they consider everyone connected to a mains supply as their customer. I meant more that by engaging I was consenting to be their customer willingly, which is not something I wanted to do.

The concept of "consenting to be their customer" doesn't exist. It was pup sold by the AAA and such.

By using water and waste pipes, you are a willing and consensual service user. Contacting them won't change your status or have any flags added to your property to note you're now a "real" customer.

Not having contacted them doesn't give you more power or legitimacy if you end up in court arguing that you don't owe them anything.

On the leak investigation matter - did they provide any specifics in terms of the volume of flow they saw during this alleged leak? From what I recall, they were only contacting customers with a massive outflow of water. I'm not sure if a tap open for six hours would qualify.

Have the bills sent to you shown a massive spike in consumption in April and then a drop again?

aido79

fyfe79 wrote: »

"Signing up as their customer" was the wrong phrasing. Of course I know they supply the water and they consider everyone connected to a mains supply as their customer. I meant more that by engaging I was consenting to be their customer willingly, which is not something I wanted to do. I'll probably contact them, tbh.

A very simple way to check if you have a leak would be to turn of all of your taps. Then take note of the reading on your water meter. Leave the taps off for an hour. If the meter reading changes in that hour you have a leak. If the reading doesn't change then you don't have a leak. This information will be useful to Irish water and will most likely speed up the process.

fyfe79

The meter is in the ground and I've no way of opening the cover at the moment.

I filled out the IW questionnaire online and one of the questions was is there a leak issue with the toilet. We replaced the stopcock about 6 months ago and at times there's water trickling after flushing which requires a quick push of the flush button again to remedy. Maybe it's this triggering the leak report, which would make sense if the meters were conditioned to pick up a constant flow of water no matter how small. I assumed they were looking at unexpectedly large consumptions.

Anyway, their auto email said they'd be in touch within a few days so I'll take it from there. Thanks for the suggestions.

fyfe79

seamus wrote: »

The concept of "consenting to be their customer" doesn't exist. It was pup sold by the AAA and such.

By using water and waste pipes, you are a willing and consensual service user. Contacting them won't change your status or have any flags added to your property to note you're now a "real" customer.

Not having contacted them doesn't give you more power or legitimacy if you end up in court arguing that you don't owe them anything.

On the leak investigation matter - did they provide any specifics in terms of the volume of flow they saw during this alleged leak? From what I recall, they were only contacting customers with a massive outflow of water. I'm not sure if a tap open for six hours would qualify.

Have the bills sent to you shown a massive spike in consumption in April and then a drop again?

Thanks. Yeah what you were saying about being flagged, is what I was concerned about.

No details on the letter about consumption during the alleged leak. That was my thinking too, they were only contacting customers with a large outflow.

Hard to know what IW have seen. I guess when they get in touch they'll give me the specifics.

Gadgetman496

I received a letter way back from them indicating I had a leak. It was about 2 months after they had installed the meter. I was so adamant that I didn't have a leak that I was going to ignore the notice. After a bit of thought I decided to engage & made an appointment for them to check my property.

The new meters are quite smart in that they have three systems built in, one automatically sends a reading via radio signal to the reading van as it passes your property, they don't need to stop and don't need to physically read the meter. The meter also has a built in alarm system which notifies them if a constant flow exists, however small & this is what they use to indicate a leak present. Finally the meter is equipped with a tamper proof alarm.

When they respond to a suspected leak letter they turn off the mains at point of entry to your property (normally a stop cock valve under your kitchen sink), they then take a meter reading & pressurise the line from the meter to your house, if the the meter reading changes you have a leak between your meter and the point of entry to your house & they will use equipment to locate the precise location of that leak and repair it free of charge. If no external leak is detected they will make sure all taps etc are turned off inside & outside your property and turn on the supply again, they will wait for a period and take another meter reading, if the reading has changed you have a leak within your property & they will also identify that but you must arrange a private fix and cover that cost yourself. If there is no increase in the meter reading at that stage you are deemed to be leak free.

I decided to engage for two reasons, 1. If I did indeed have a leak I wanted to know about it as I did not want to end up at some point paying for usage I wasn't actually benefiting from & 2. I saw no point in allowing such a waste to continue for no reason.

Anyway, in my case I was gobsmacked to learn that not only did I have a leak inside my property, I had two! Both my toilet cisterns were releasing a continuous constant flow of water to the toilet bowl 24/7 for God knows how many years. You couldn't see it, you couldn't hear it & it left no visible scale marks on either bowl. The guy sent out by Irish water was from a Sub company called Murphy Eng and he noticed the my cisterns were way above the recommended water line which indicated to him that the cisterns were continuing to receive water even after the ballcock have closed fully and the excess water was escaping via the overflow to the toilet bowl continuously. He got a piece of toilet paper and placed it on the back of the bowl and it was instantly washed away before my eyes. They gave me a report and a number to call them back when I had it sorted.

I engaged a local plumber and he changed both seals in the cistern ballcocks at a very minimal cost and that was that. I called the number and reported that I had repaired the leaks and they returned to do a re-test free of charge, at that point I was given the all clear.

I am glad I engaged regardless of my thoughts on the whole charges debacle & think the OP should go ahead and get the leak test carried out too.

fyfe79

^ Great post Gadgetman, thanks. The more I think about it, it must be my toilet that's causing the leak.

Gadgetman496

fyfe79 wrote: »

^ Great post Gadgetman, thanks. The more I think about it, it must be my toilet that's causing the leak.

Leave a piece of toilet paper on the back of the bowl & watch, It will only take a couple of seconds to drench the paper if it is leaking.

aido79

fyfe79 wrote: »

The meter is in the ground and I've no way of opening the cover at the moment.

I filled out the IW questionnaire online and one of the questions was is there a leak issue with the toilet. We replaced the stopcock about 6 months ago and at times there's water trickling after flushing which requires a quick push of the flush button again to remedy. Maybe it's this triggering the leak report, which would make sense if the meters were conditioned to pick up a constant flow of water no matter how small. I assumed they were looking at unexpectedly large consumptions.

Anyway, their auto email said they'd be in touch within a few days so I'll take it from there. Thanks for the suggestions.

You're welcome.
Sorry, I just assumed you would have access to the meter.

Gadgetman496

@ fyfe79,

The flat end of the handle of a standard metal table spoon is the best implement to open the meter cover.

tuisginideach

Gadgetman496 wrote: »

Leave a piece of toilet paper on the back of the bowel & watch, It will only take a couple of seconds to drench the paper if it is leaking.

Surely not on the back of the bowel?????

Gadgetman496

tuisginideach wrote: »

Surely not on the back of the bowel?????

Maybe that too!

You might be surprised to discover you have a leak there too