Water

Summary

Mr C owns a substantial garage, which he used for storage but that was formerly used for a business. It had no toilet or kitchen facilities but there was a stopcock at the entrance. He was charged for drainage of rainwater from the roof but not for water services. However, in 2014 Business Stream sent him a demand for payment for the provision of water there. Mr C said that after Business Stream visited to verify his information about the lack of facilities, he made enquiries about permanent disconnection of the water supply. A few days later, a contractor called and fitted a meter, although Mr C said he explained that what he wanted was disconnection. He told us that he was asked to pay a fee to proceed with disconnection, but Business Stream then sent him an invoice seeking a further, larger, payment for it. Mr C complained that Business Stream failed to give him prior notice before a water meter was fitted and that the proposed charge for disconnection was expensive for what was required.

We found from our investigation that Mr C had initially applied for a reassessment of charges, which is for the installation of a water meter if possible, before he applied for disconnection of the water supply. There was no record of him changing his mind about having a meter fitted before he applied for disconnection, and we did not uphold the complaint as we did not find evidence that Business Stream were required to give prior notice.

Summary

Ms C works for a company providing care services to people who rented accommodation individually from a housing association. The company had use of a room on the premises, where staff could stay overnight when helping residents. The valuation assessor had categorised the premises as residential, apart from the room, which had a commercial rateable value.

Ms C complained that Business Stream applied charges for water and waste water services on the basis of a care home. Her company was charged for all water passing through the shared water meter, whether it was used for domestic or non-domestic purposes. She argued that the domestic water was already covered by council tax for the residential parts of the premises, and that the company should only be charged on the small rateable value of the commercial element. Business Stream had applied their dual-use policy, used where a single property has both residential and commercial components. This requires commercial residents to ask domestic residents to cancel the water charges from their council tax and pay the company for water that they use. However, Ms C said that the residents were exempt from council tax (and, therefore, water charges). Business Stream challenged the charges with Scottish Water on Ms C's behalf, but Scottish Water said that they were correct.

We upheld Ms C's complaint as we had a number of concerns about this approach. Scottish Water considered the premises to be a care home, implying that all water was used for the operation of the care home. Under such circumstances, the dual-use policy would not be applicable. The fact that they had applied this policy reflected the fact that the assessor differentiated between the domestic and non-domestic parts of the premises. The dual-use policy also made no provision for the fact that the residents were not liable for council tax. We considered it unreasonable to expect the company to ignore this and charge the residents for water (at the higher commercial rate), or to absorb the cost of the water used. The policy was applied without considering the specific circumstances at the premises or whether the company was being charged only for the water it used.

We did not uphold a second complaint from Ms C about the handling of her complaint.

Recommendations

We recommended that Business Stream:

• share our comments with Scottish Water and work with them to ensure that water charges at the premises accurately reflect the amount of water used for non-domestic purposes; and
• share our comments with Scottish Water regarding the appropriateness of applying the dual-use policy in this case.

Summary

Mr C complained about the fixed charges Business Stream applied to his client company's account, which were based upon the physical size of the water meter. He said that the company's water meter was larger than was needed for day-to-day use because their water supply also served fire hydrants. He complained that Business Stream were not allowed to charge for water used for fire-fighting and requested that the charges be adjusted. Business Stream exchanged the meter and amended the charges. However, Mr C wanted this backdated to the time of the original meter's installation.

Business Stream confirmed that water used for fire-fighting should not be charged. However, the meter had been installed several years ago – before Business Stream existed - as part of a Scottish Water project to try to ensure meters were the appropriate size for customer needs (which also meant that fixed charges were appropriate). Business Stream said there were almost no records going back that far, although the company would have signed giving their agreement to the original meter when it was installed. In addition, although Business Stream said Scottish Water would have carried out surveys at that time, they also relied upon information provided by customers. Business Stream said that the company would have paid for the original meter installation (it had actually replaced an even larger meter) and neither they nor Scottish Water would know their customers' specific requirements after installation. Business Stream said the issue was not raised until Mr C recently got in touch with them, at which point Business Stream had the meter exchanged and the billing addressed. They acknowledged a slight delay in processing the request and offered a credit on the account, which Mr C rejected.

Given the passage of time, there was very little evidence on which we could base our decision. Although we took Mr C's concerns into account, our role was to consider whether the evidence available indicated maladministration by Business Stream. They could not confirm if any information was given to the company at the time of the original swap or provide the original paperwork relating to their water needs at that time, but Mr C could not provide this either. We took account of the fact that the company would have agreed to the historic swap. In addition, as this was done under a project relating to the size of meters for fixed charges, we felt they could reasonably be expected to have known there was a relationship between fixed charges and meter size. Despite this, they raised no concerns about the situation until some 11 years after the original meter exchange. On balance, and although we took account of the costs involved, we considered there was insufficient evidence to uphold Mr C's complaint. In the circumstances, however, we made one recommendation.

Recommendations

We recommended that Business Stream:

• consider reissuing their account credit offer to Mr C.

Summary

Mr C's business occupies premises on the ground floor of a building. Mr C also used to own a property on the floor above. This second property was unoccupied until Mr C sold it to its current owner in 2011. The properties share a water supply and meter, which Business Stream used to bill Mr C for his current business premises. However, due to the shared supply he was also billed for the water used in the second property. Business Stream also charged the new owner of the second property for unmeasured/estimated charges, effectively charging two customers for the same water supply. Business Stream became aware of the shared supply in August 2012, and Mr C told us that in November 2012 he was advised to install a sub-meter to measure the water usage at the second property, which would be used to bill the user. Mr C installed the meter but was later advised that it would not be read and could not be used for billing purposes. Mr C complained that he had been incorrectly advised about installing the meter and that he was being unreasonably billed for water used at the second property.

We found no evidence that Business Stream had advised Mr C beforehand that although he could install a private sub-meter at his own expense to measure the usage at the second property, it would not be used for billing purposes. We were critical that many of the staff he dealt with did not appear to be aware of the policy on sub-meters, and that the call logs did not accurately note what advice he was given. During our investigation we also discovered that Business Stream had applied a section of their billing policy relating to landlords and tenants. We did not consider that this applied in Mr C's case and found that they had no policy that specifically related to shared supplies for properties with different owners. We upheld his complaint and were also critical that Business Stream did not tell him how he could fix the double billing issue when they became aware of the shared supply.

Recommendations

We recommended that Business Stream:

• take steps to ensure that their frontline staff are fully aware of the policy on sub-meters;
• take steps to ensure that information provided during calls is accurately reflected in the event log;
• refund Mr C the cost of the sub-meter and its installation;
• reconsider whether their policies allow for situations similar to these and ensure that we are kept updated in their discussions with the Scottish Government about shared supplies; and
• refund Mr C an amount equal to the unmeasured charges billed in the period we investigated.

Summary

Mr C, who is a solicitor, complained on behalf of his client (Mrs A) about Business Stream's handling of non-domestic water charges for her previous property. He complained that they delayed in issuing Mrs A with an invoice and that as they were not aware that a meter had been installed they had not been billing previous tenants of the property. When the meter was discovered, Mrs A was of the view that she was being held liable for all the water charges since the meter was installed.

During our investigation we found no evidence that Business Stream had failed to act on information about Mrs A's property. She had not told them that she was occupying it, as she should have done, and once they discovered that she had taken over responsibility for it they sent her an invoice. We were concerned, however, that they initially charged Mrs A on unmeasured charges, as they had not realised that a meter had been installed, and so needed to make a number of changes to her account. We also discovered that, while Business Stream had not billed Mrs A for water used by previous tenants, they had opened her account on a reading of zero units rather than 40 units, so she had been billed for an incorrect amount of water usage. We considered that this had been poor customer service and upheld Mr C's complaint. We noted that Business Stream had already offered Mrs A some financial redress for their handling of her account.

Recommendations

We recommended that Business Stream:

• apologise to Mrs A for their handling of this matter; and
• reinforce the apology and financial redress already offered and credit a further amount to Mrs A's account as a recognition of the time and trouble caused by their failings.

Summary

Mr C operates his business from three units in a business centre. He contacted Business Stream when he moved in and, following a visit, an account was opened and he set up a direct debit to pay monthly bills. He told us that it was agreed with Business Stream that he would be billed for all three premises in one invoice. Some three years later Business Stream invoiced him separately for one of the units but then cancelled this, having been advised by Mr C that he was being billed for all three units. In 2013, Business Stream invoiced Mr C for outstanding services provided to two of his units since 2010. Mr C believed that he should not have to pay for the error in 2010 when his account was set up. He also complained of delay in the handling of his complaint.

From our investigation we found that there was evidence of the account being opened for one unit, but no evidence of an agreement to pay for the three units under one account, so we did not uphold this complaint. However, we did uphold Mr C’s complaint about how his enquiries and complaint were dealt with. We found there were periods when there was no action, updates were not provided, and there was a failure to send a form to Scottish Water within a reasonable time, as well as delay in responding to the complaint.

Recommendations

We recommended that Business Stream:

• formally apologise and credit Mr C's account with a sum in recognition of the poor handling of the matter;
• review their handling and credit Mr C's account with 50 percent of the difference between the unmeasured rateable value water charges and his reassessed charges for the appropriate period, if it is established that there were unexplained delays by them; a
• ensure that lessons learned from review of the case are passed on to staff.

Summary

A charity operates out of three units in a shopping centre. Mr C complained on behalf of the charity that they were being charged for surface water drainage (SWD) on the units despite the roof operating as a car park. Mr C said that the owner of the car park pays for SWD and, therefore, Business Stream were charging twice for the same services.

Business Stream told us that all three units have their own rateable value, as detailed on the Scottish Assessors Association website (which contains information about the current rateable values for properties in Scotland). To be charged SWD there must be a rateable value associated with the property, as this how the bill is calculated. The shopping centre and the car park have no rateable value and so could not be charged SWD. Business Stream did tell us that the owner of the car park had been charged a small amount for SWD, but that this was a mistake and they would correct it. We found that Business Stream had followed their policy in applying SWD charges to the units and we did not uphold Mr C's complaint.

Summary

Mr C complained that Business Stream had failed to re-assess the invoice his company received for water used, despite this clearly being in excess of normal usage. He said that there was no evident reason for the spike in consumption.

We found that Business Stream had taken all the actions they needed to investigate Mr C's report of high water consumption. Whilst the reason had not been identified, we found that Business Stream had reassured themselves that it was not due to something which they had a responsibility to attend to. They explained that as neither they nor Mr C's plumber had found a leak or reason for the high water consumption, it appeared to be related to internal issues, such as a cistern constantly flowing, or taps being left running. Although we did not uphold Mr C's complaint, Business Stream agreed that they would seek further reassurances by asking Scottish Water to check further back on whether there might have been any action on the water network which might have caused the increased reading in the meter.

Summary

Mr and Mrs C have a workshop attached to their house. After receiving advice from the Central Market Agency, who hold records of the licensed water supplier of every business customer in Scotland, Business Stream became aware that there was a liability for commercial water services at the site. However, Business Stream only became aware of who occupied the property when they undertook an audit and then issued a bill to Mr and Mrs C for water charges, which they backdated to October 2010.

Mr and Mrs C complained to us that Business Stream had acted unreasonably in the delay in telling them that charges were due; levied charges for water services they had never had; failed to provide consistent and clear advice about the charges; and failed to respond promptly to their complaint.

We found that there was a responsibility on both Mr and Mrs C and Business Stream in relation to billing for water services. On Mr and Mrs C’s part it was to tell Business Stream that they occupied the premises, and on Business Stream's part it was to act promptly when they receive details of business premises where there have not been previous water charges. Business Stream told us that they accepted that their process could have been better, but they had taken action to make improvements. Overall we did not uphold the complaint, taking into account that Mr and Mrs C would have been billed earlier if they had approached Business Stream about providing water and waste water services.

We found that Business Stream had made appropriate enquiries with Scottish Water about Mr and Mrs C's liability, and had asked for payment based on the advice they received. However, we found that there had been confusion and inconsistency in the advice given about the charges due, for which Business Stream had apologised, and agreed to credit Mr and Mrs C's account with a small payment in line with their commitment to meet a certain level of service.

We also upheld the complaint about the complaints handling, having found that there was a failure to respond to a request for a phone call from a manager. In recognition of this, Business Stream agreed to a further small payment in line with their services standards.

Recommendations

We recommended that Business Stream:

• make the two payments offered to Mr and Mrs C in recognition of the failure to meet commitments under the service standards.

Summary

Mr C experienced external flooding at his property in early 2014. This had happened before, and in 2010 Scottish Water had put a plan in place to address the problem, which included removing tree roots and regularly checking the section of sewer that was causing the flooding. Mr C felt that this plan was not working, and he wanted a permanent solution to the matter. He complained to us that Scottish Water failed to replace the sewer part that had tree roots in it.

Our investigation considered the actions Scottish Water had already taken and what they proposed to do in order to permanently resolve this. We found that Scottish Water had been thorough in responding to Mr C's complaint. As well as their ongoing maintenance of the affected area over the years, they had recently replaced a section of sewer larger than that the survey had suggested. We also found that Scottish Water had been proactive in finding a long term solution, and planned to resolve the external flooding problem in Mr C's street in 2015, in conjunction with another project to resolve internal flooding issues nearby. We considered their actions to be reasonable in the circumstances and did not uphold Mr C's complaint.