Water rates, quick ask before searching....

[Miss V]

Hey everybody,

Does anyone know the new laws on charging water rates to Qld tenants, especially now that we have Urban Utilities charging us seperate bills from rates.
My latest water bill has gone up massively and I've previously had an audit done on my pipes so pretty sure there is no leak on my side.

Thanks all

 

[wylie]

Charting tenants for usage has not changed, but if you have a potential leak, that needs to be sorted out.

We had a tenant whose water usage increased enough to have the BCC write to us. We had the BCC come out and pressure test the pipe into the house. Before we did that, we had the tenant read the meter and wait an hour - no change to the meter. We then waited for a day when nobody would be home, read the meter ourselves and left it for several hours - still no movement on the meter.

However, the BCC pressure test did show a leak. There was no soggy ground between the stopcock and the front tap, and it turned out to be the downstairs toilet under the house had a leak from the cistern into the pan, small enough that it didn't register over several hours, but over several weeks, it made a difference to the amount of water being used.

We replaced the old toilet and things went back to normal again.

While this was being investigated we charged our tenants an amount based on the reading prior to the increased usage, so that they were not penalized for a leak that was not their fault.

 

[redwing]

How about the complexes without individual water meter's, there seemed to be a large number over there and I would guess the cost of adding individual meters to large complexes would be prohibitive?