St Martins TRA

The residents association has been campaigning for the refund to tenants of part of the water rates paid before 2016. Our landlords have now agreed to this refund

Before 2016  housing associations and local authorities got a special rate from Thames Water for their tenants. In 2016 the court held that the saving should be passed onto the tenants. This case only applied to Southwark, and since then the TRA has been campaigning for the saving to be passed onto St Martins tenants. There have been other cases in different parts of London, and Lambeth Council has now agreed to pass on the savings to their tenants.

Metropolitan, and, it seems, Optivo and Notting Hill, have now agreed to refund the saving and pay the money into tenants’ rent account. We cannot say when it will be paid or how much will be paid. 

This refund does not apply to leaseholders, unless they were tenants before 2016. As far as we are aware they were not over-charged on the water rates. 

See below for the information we have received:   

“MTVH remain committed to refund every customer due a refund under the Thames Water contract. This contract commenced in 2004 and we have requested further information from Thames Water to enable us to provide a full and correct refund to customers. MTVH are setting up a page on our website with information and Q&A’s to cover the most frequently asked questions. We are working with Optivo and NHG to identify the refunds now due their customers 

Once we receive the breakdown from Thames Water, we will notify customers by letter how we calculated this refund amount. This credit will automatically be applied to the rent account without the customer requiring to take any action. This will allow the customer to either reduce future payments or request a full refund. The details on how to do this will all be stated in the letter. 

The approach of applying the credit to account enables MTVH to give every customer a refund without the need to contact us.

If you wish, you can use that as an official statement to pass on as a TRA to your members and the residents.”