St Martins TRA

We held a meeting on leaseholder issues in April 2016. We covered lots of issues in that meeting, including water charges. We’ve now received an update from Metropolitan.

As a reminder, the minutes of the meeting say the following:

Some leaseholders in High Trees have been paying water charges ever since they obtained their lease. Other leaseholders have only been paying water charges from April 2016. Ben [from Metropolitan] did not know why there was this discrepancy. He will investigate and contact Chris [the TRA secretary] with the result.

Ben, from Metropolitan, has now responded. The summary below, approved by Ben from Metropolitan, is probably the most important:

[For leaseholders who did not receive a bill from Thames Water before April 2016]:
was the water paid for by Metropolitan and recharged to the leaseholders through their service charges? No
was the water paid for my Metropolitan and not recharged to the leaseholders by any method? Yes

Are you a resident of High Trees? And are you happy with this response? If so, that’s great. If not, please contact us so we can have a discussion on how to move forward.

A fuller version of Metropolitan’s response is below

In the case of some leaseholders at St Martin’s, Metropolitan had been paying their water and wastewater charges. Metropolitan had not been re-charging these leaseholders for these water costs. The letter dated 1/2/16 informed leaseholders;

From 1st April 2016 Thames Water will be billing you directly instead of charging Metropolitan.
Currently your water and wastewater charges have been charged to Metropolitan and we have paid them. In most circumstances we then re-charge the residents through the service charges, but our records show we have not been re-charging you.
Metropolitan are not looking to recover any water and wastewater charges which have not been billed to you.

It may have been the case that some leaseholders were already paying Thames Water directly. No leaseholders were charged for their water usage by Thames Water and Metropolitan.
I have checked back to 2011 and no leaseholders at St Martin’s were recharged for their water usage.