Couple billed £12,000 by water companies for leak that didn’t even exist

A couple were asked to fork out £12,000 by two water companies for a leak that didn’t exist.

Anna Pearce, 44, and her husband Andrew, 45, moved into their Cowden, a village in Kent, home with their two children in February 2018.

But they were only months later handed a £7,000 water bill from Southern Water (SW) and a £5,000 bill from Sutton and East Surrey Water (SES Water).

The pair of property workers, who have since moved to West Sussex, said engineers sent to their semi-detached property couldn’t find where this leak was.

But a local contractor working in the area the following year realised that the five-digit bill was due to a nearby water plant – the meter was on Anna and Andrew’s driveway.

Contacting the providers, SES Water wrote off its half of the bill but SW sent debt collectors knocking on the couple’s door for the £7,644.90 bill in 2020.

‘We did everything, and then they were sending us debt collectors – you felt really unimportant and unheard,’ Anna, who runs the investment company Property Empress, said.

‘It’s a really horrible feeling because you expect more, you expect better from these companies… I didn’t feel there was any accountability, they just don’t listen.

‘It was like torture – like water torture – like a steady drip.’

In November 2020, a SW engineer visited and ‘finally listened’. They installed a new meter not tangled up with the water power plant.

Yet Anna claimed that SW continued to ‘hassle’ them, saying they would be taken to court.

Anna filed a formal complaint against the company in May 2021 then with regulator Ofwat in December of that year.

‘We just kept getting more and more desperate – “please stop harassing us”,’ she said, adding that they even CC’d SES Water into their emails, which confirmed that the bill needed to be torn up.

‘I don’t even know if I can put it into words,’ Anna said. ‘My husband couldn’t deal with it, he just had to disconnect because it was too stressful for him, and I was just getting so frustrated.

‘It was so unnecessary – it was like torture during lockdown.’

In July 2022, SW apologised and finally closed the file after Anna and Andrew spoke with Ofwat.

‘Going back, now I can fully appreciate how badly we were treated, and we just didn’t realise at the time because we weren’t being heard,’ Anna said, who recently shared about the ordeal on her TikTok.

Ashley Marshman, head of customer services at SW, said: ‘This should not have happened and we’re very sorry for the distress caused by the confusion.

‘We waived the £7,000 wastewater bill in June 2021, as SES Water found that Mr and Mrs Pearce were being charged on an incorrect water meter.

‘As a goodwill gesture, we also waived the wastewater standing charges during the time they lived at the property.

‘Back in July 2022, we wrote to Mr and Mrs Pearce to offer them our sincere apologies and keep them informed of the steps we’d taken to resolve the situation.”

An SES Water spokesperson said: ‘We are dedicated to ensuring that our customers receive accurate billing and fair treatment, especially in cases where leaks or other unforeseen issues may impact their water usage.

‘SES Water believes that every customer deserves to be heard and supported, and we will continue to work diligently to maintain the trust and confidence of those we serve.’

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