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Why use an expert Water Consultant to negotiate that water company backcharge?
We at H²O Building Services have seen an increase in clients contacting us after receiving quite substantial water and waste water back charges from UK Water Companies, many Water Companies have “income generation departments” or “sales generation departments”, no matter what you call it the end result is the same. Many thousands of companies and Public Sector organisations are receiving back charges, many are substantial amounts and if expert water consultants water consultants are not called in to advise and work on the clients behalf to reduce or indeed cancel the back charge, the full amount claimed by the Water Companies will be paid, most recent examples are: –
D.H.L –Two sites received back charges of £ 70,000, the back charge bills were sent from United Utilities, they claimed that previous bills levied for surface water and highways drainage charges were incorrect, this may well have been the case but to back charge years was an indirect contradiction of their own scheme of charges policy which was plainly wrong. Expert water consultants within H²O looked at the case in great detail and formed the opinion the water company were not entitled to levy the back charge and it was cancelled.
Barchester Healthcare –They received a back charge bill of £ 20,000 from Thames Water, the liability was in excess of £ 60,000 however Thames Water only claimed £ 20,000. This back charge was for a care home, the impact of this amount of money would have had a major effect on budgets, Water Consultants H²O dealt directly with Thames Water and after negotiations the back charge was cancelled.
Surrey County Council – Received a back charge totalling £ 210,000 on two sites, Water Consultants H²O were called in to deal with various issues on the sites, carrying out water leak detection water leak detection and water leak repairs water leak repairs a detailed water audit was completed water audits the result being one back charge of £ 60,000 was reduced to £ 12,000 and the other site £ 150,000 down to £ 22,000, the later took nearly 2 years to resolve. The total saving to the Council was £ 178,000 – What a result.
Senior Partner of H²O Building Services Graham Mann says ” There will be £m’s of back charges claimed by water companies, they have a statutory duty to bill correctly, I would estimate a large proportion of these claims can be dismissed, however if expert water consultants are not employed then companies will be forced to pay up”.
Interesting thought, how many companies and Public Sector organisations received refunds due to historical billing errors by Water Companies as a sub-sequence or an audit by the relevant Water Company? We know of NONE!