02/06/2024
Croydon Water Claims - Water Overcharges Explained
Until the late 1990s, water companies such as Thames Water used to bill their domestic customers directly and, separately, local authorities such as Croydon Council used to collect rent payments from their council tenants.
Then, if a customer fell into arrears with paying their water bills, Thames Water could huff and puff and send letters to chase up the arrears - but they were not allowed to threaten to cut off the water supplies for those who either couldn't or wouldn't pay, because water is an "essential service".
However, Croydon Council, like other local authorities, had the power to threaten and, ultimately, carry out evictions where tenants fell into rent arrears and were unable to clear the debt.
One of the water companies then came up with the idea of setting up new arrangements in the areas they served, so that these local authorities would include charges for 'Domestic Water Services' as part of the rent payment. This meant that the local authorities would collect water payments on behalf of the water companies.
Then, if a council tenant fell behind on their rent payments (including water charges), the local authority could threaten to evict them, which meant that the water companies enjoyed a much better payment collection rate – and they paid the local authorities a commission for this service.
Before long, Thames Water and many of the other water companies put these new agreements in place up with hundreds of local authorities up and down the country – and Croydon Council entered into such a contract with Thames Water in 2001.
Fast-forward to 2016 and a very public legal case was brought against Southwark Council (who had a very similar contract in place with Thames Water), the result of which was that such agreements were ruled to be ILLEGAL.
As a result, Southwark Council had to pay over £28,000,000 to council tenants in their area who had been illegally overcharged.
Seeing this, Croydon Council and all the other local authorities cancelled their illegal contracts with the water companies and stopped including domestic water charges in the rent for their tenants.
However, in the 8 years since that court ruling, Croydon Council has done NOTHING to recompense those tenants who they illegally overcharged from 2001 to 2016.
Over time, we have fought legal battles with local authorities across the UK to seek justice on behalf of the victims of this national scandal – and we have now made the breakthrough which means we are now able to secure maximum compensation payments on behalf of past/present tenants who were overcharged by Croydon Council in all or part of the period from 2001 to 2016. So, don’t delay, start your claim today at https://croydonwaterclaims.co.uk/
