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Water bill refund

If you were a tenant, or living in temporary accommodation, between 1 April 2001 and 28 July 2013 you may be able to get a water bill refund.

About the court case

A court case decided that we had acted as a 'water reseller' for Thames Water and not an 'agent'. 

A water reseller is a ‘middleman’ who receives a supply of water and sewerage services from the water company and sells it on to the users.  

This means that we mistakenly overcharged tenants. 

We overcharged tenants by:

  • the amount of the commission Thames Water paid us

  • plus the allowance given for empty homes

This added up to 22.1% of the total charge. 

We did not knowingly overcharge tenants, because we thought we were acting as an agent and not a water reseller.  

We’re now paying this money back. 

We’ve refunded affected tenants 22.1% of their water charges, with interest, for the period from April 2001 to July 2013. 

Around 39,000 Southwark households were affected.