AIBU to panic about how to pay this debt?

[blackrabbitwhiterabbit]

I've been referred to a debt collection agency for non payment of a ?2000 water bill from my previous house. I was sent the bill out of the blue two years ago......when I rang the water company they said I must have some kind of leak. I paid for a plumber and he found there had been a leak on my toilet for around two years although I knew nothing about this.

I've been in touch with the debt agency now who tell me I only have 6 months to pay this bill, or I go to court with the view of getting prosecuted. This means payments of ?333 every month which I really can't afford (am single parent.) They did an affordability calulator thing with me and claim that I CAN afford it, but I know I can't.

Water company says I have to pay, and it's not their debt. I don't think I should have to pay so much over 6 months, if at all. AIBU?

Tinandgonic, water bills are separate as water is a utility provided by a water company, eg Anglia, Severn Trent etc, and council tax is payable to your local council to cover bins, street lights, policing etc. I've never known a council to provide water.

My father is a Justice of the Peace, he presides over debt matters in addition to traffic and parking tickets and other minor issues in Provincial Court in Canada - and our laws are very similar (as our entire court system is based upon British Common Law)

Here is my advice (from the conversations I have had with him).

Document EVERYTHING. Starting at finding and fixing the leak, right up to all of your interactions with this goon squad of a collections agency.

Make an offer to pay - I am sure that their "calculator" is a load of bollocks - did they even have an extended discussion with you over what your monthly ins and outs are? Make sure your offer is reasonable for YOU. Do not discount the importance of continuing to put money into emergency savings, account for incidentals, and do not allow it to negatively affect your DC(s). Take an evening with a cup or two of tea and some choccies and go through your budget line by line. Allow an extra 5-10% on each variable amount for unforeseen increases.

Again, document, document, document. Dates and times of all contact. The name of the person you spoke to (or their refusal to provide it, if that is the case). All of this will support you, and DO allow it to go to court if you cannot reach a settlement. However, don't play your hand to the agency representative. Just continue to document and tell them that you are sorry that you are unable to pay the £333 they are demanding, and guess that court proceedings are inevitable.

You'd be amazed at how many debts are reduced massively or rendered null and void because a collection agency refused a reasonable offer of repayment (and if you can honestly only afford 10 quid a week, and can support it with your budget breakdown, that is a reasonable offer - this isn't a mortgage we are talking about).

Deep breath, you are OK. Collection agencies rely on intimidation to make their money, and there is a strong likelihood that the agent is working for a commission.

The original bill just doesn't sound reasonable, and they have sold it to a debt collection company because they know there is no way you would ever pay it.

I have a similar thing going on with a mobile phone bill.

You need to speak to Citizens Advice. But don't worry. More likely than not, you won't need to pay this bill.

Refuse to deal with them any more until you have got some proper advice.

Even though they have refused the lower payment make it now, keep paying it and when it does go to court you can show your willing to pay the debt and tried to negotiate this amount in the first place.

I used to be part of the court team for Council Tax arrears, most people would argue that they couldn't afford the £150pm (for an example) but then they don't pay anything for months, even a lower amount.

A judge wants to see payments made, a willingness to accept the debt etc.

On the other hand, did this debt just suddenly appear? ie if you were metered you should get a bill every quarter, so any leak should have shown itself pretty quickly not after 2 years. I would be querying this with the waterboard.

People would be terrified of ringing their council tax department. I am lovely, and would always try to help people with their bills. Everyone in my department was just as lovely. We have to collect money in, telling someone to pay something they simply cannot afford does not get the money in.

Take down the person's name, and make a note of the date and time, write notes as you go. Write out what points you wish to make, and tick them off when you have addressed them, and write down the company's response to each point.

If you can't bring yourself to ring, email. Query why they messed up in the first place. Did you get water bills prior to the "leak bill"? How long were you at the property for? Did you inform the water company you had moved in?

I don't know where you are Tin but here (England) it is quite normal to pay water bills separately.

Some people pay a fixed amount based on the rateable value of the property (which is a work of fiction and has no bearing on the actual value of the property) and some people have meters so pay by how much they use.

For the OP, I would suggest asking on moneysavingexpert or consumeraction - there are specialist boards for water issues so more likelihood of specialist knowledge.

Questions I would be asking
Are you legally liable for this debt?
What about your water company's complaints procedure
Can OFWAT (water ombudsman) help
Then seek advice from Stepchange or other debt charity. If you end up having to pay, they will help you make an offer to payment based on what you can actually afford.

I wouldn't worry about court too much - if it goes to court and there is an order for payment, it will be based on your circumstances and what the court considers that you can afford, after your normal household expenses have been taken into account, including food, transport, other debts etc.
You wouldn't be expected to pay over £300 pm unless you had this and more in truely disposable income.

Ooh cross post with a few others - god I'm slow

I hope you are feeling reassured, OP. This situation is not your fault - you didn't know about the water leak so this bill has taken you completely by surprise. Take the advice about consulting the CAB - they deal with this kind of problem all the time, often with much larger debts. This kind of situation can always be resolved by negotiation based on your earnings and outgoings and a compromise being reached on what you can afford to pay. Try not to worry - this is eminently solvable.

My very first question is whether or not you are actually liable for this debt in the first place.

Did you OWN the home with the leaking toilet or did you rent it? Something like this would absolutely be the landlord's responsibility and be covered by landlords' insurance.

Did you not notice your water bill mounting up every month, or did they wake up one morning and hit you with an out of the blue £2000 bill?

I think you should be talking to the CAB people about challenging the validity of the original "debt". Unless you owned the home and were receiving oddly high water bills for months that you never questioned, it's possible that you are not liable.

I was once pursued by a debt collection agency for £500. I followed advice from the MoneySavingExpert website (whole, massive section on this issue) and asked to be sent a copy of the original bill. They never sent it. Every few months, they'd contact me asking for £500, I'd repeat my request for the bill, they'd say they would send it, never did.

You don't have to pay ANYTHING unless they can produce the original bill.

I'd contract the water board in writing and ask them what the hell is going on. I really wouldn't play this agency ANYTHING.

I recently had a huge bill from British Gas which they passed on to debt collectors. I went back to British Gas and paid them directly.

What period does the £2000 cover? Is it more than a year? Is it a meter?

We had a similar issue with DHs flat regarding his electricity bill, in that he'd been paying a direct debit every month for 5 years but when he moved out we gave the final reading and got billed for £4K!

We took it to the Ombudsman and it turns out, the meter is technically the property of the energy company so the onus is on them to read the meter once a year. If they fail to do that, they cannot bill you the excess consumption. They can only bill you for the previous 12 months. We ended up only having to pay around £500.

Also, as a pp has said did you own or rent the property? Where exactly was the leak?

I'd query this, I'm very surprised anyone could build up a bill of £2000 without it being a major leak, even over a period of two years.

If the toilet was leaking, where was it leaking? Was it constantly running i.e. broken flush?

Did the bills increase suddenly when you lived there? Did the water company inspect the pipes outside or did you have a metered supply. I'd ask lots of questions before paying this bill and when you do pay it just settle on an amount you can afford and offer it in writing to them. I'd say £100 per month would be fair, it will still be paid off in less than two years that way.

If you are in Scotland look up stephange debt charity, they will help you sort this out.
They will do a income and expenditure with you and will have an honest view of what you can afford and then they will write to the company on your behalf.
you will recieve statement from stepchange showing you are paying it off.

99% of the time a company will accept.

Just on the water bills thing - in Scotland your water bill is included within your council tax payment so I expect that's where the pp was coming from.

Agree with others - get advice from the CAB, and remember the debt collection agency are paid to be scary - sounds obvious but they're not on your side and therefore you can't just accept what they tell you 'has' to happen.

Thanks for all the responses!

I used to pay my bill quarterly at my old house, (which I owned.) The bill was always fairly high (think around 80/90 a month but i didnt know this was unusual at the time) and then I got one for ?1500 out of the blue for the leak. It was the plumber who reckoned the leak had been happening inside the toilet (so not noticeable) for around 2 years. The bill has now gone up to ?2000 as they bunged a load of other water bills on top.

I stupidly now have no copy of original bill or the plumber's bill. Will go see CAB as soon as I can though!

Agree with pp that you need to contact the agency for a copy of the bill in question. They can't enforce the debt if they can't produce this.

My Scottish water payments used to be rolled into the council tax bill. If it's still the same, it's not a case of payments to a private company as it is in England and Wales.

I had some trouble when we moved to an English metered house, where the bills were very erratic and it took me a good 12 months to query it as I had no idea what our usage should be and was only billed every six months. Thery were always insistent that I was liable for any leaks within my property, but in the end the meter was found to be faulty and I got a new meter plus a refund.

From limited experience of witnessing other cases, I'd agree with PPs that a judge is not likely to insist on you paying an excessive and unaffordable amount each month.

Moneysavingexpert can help, so go there for some more advice. Pick up the phone and call one of the debt charities like Stepchange or Christians Against Poverty - they may negotiate with the collection company for you.

I agree with everything that's been said about documenting everything and seeing CAB.

I would add that a number of people I know have had some success with dealing with unreasonable behaviour of utility companies via Twitter/social media. Their fear of bad PR seems to provoke a quick response. No idea if this would work in your case.

You could also try newspapers that have a Watchdog type column and see if they can help you.

And I'm not 100% certain, but if you dispute the debt (or part of it) I think they have to stop collection activities until the dispute is looked in to. I guess you'd have to do this with the water company as well as the debt collector (all in writing, of course)

When I queried a recent water bill recently it turned out we had a leak that they were about to inform me about (sic) as they had picked up that that quarter's bill was a lot higher than the same quarter the previous year. They didn't know at that time that there was a leak, but merely pointing out a possible leak. We paid a plumber to find and fix the leak (our own cost as its our responsibility as house owners). Once we informed the water company that it had been fixed, they then arranged for the excess water bill to be refunded against subsequent bills. Can't see why your water board can't do the same?

That said, there are a lot of charlatans out there - we came home from holiday to find a £100 parking fine from the parking company that supposedly owns the land that Travelodge use for their clients' car parking. Despite having parked in the hotels car park and logging our car registration number at the hotel reception (like it says on their booking form), we had a letter with photos, of us driving in and out, accusing us of overstaying our welcome at the service station! Think they were assuming we were dogging and not staying overnight to give ourselves a break from a long drive!

I get so angry as all it means is that they are trying it on which either: scares you into paying; or angers you into an unnecessary waste of your time justifying, in writing and with piles of evidence, why you don't need to pay.

Don't bother with CAB. Get in touch with the national debt line. They will help.

do not agree to pay these bullies (who have most likely bought the debt anyway). They are throwing their weight around as they have very few powers. The last thing they want to do is take you to court as you'll end up paying £10 a month.

write to them and tell them to put the account on hold for 30 days (they have to do this). then get advice over what a sensible offer of payment is.

The national debt line website has an excellent payment calculator.

this pay within six months thing is bullshit.

or as others have said get advice on disputing the debt. in fact im sure you can refuse to deal with them and only deal with the water company direct.

speak to step change they are fab and they will advise you what to do and speak to the water company for you.