Debt recovery

We will do our best to support you if you need help paying, but if you fail to pay we will take action to recover any money you owe us.

If you do not pay your bill, keep to your payment plan or pay on time, we will either:

• take legal action, which means you will incur additional costs and it may affect your credit rating
• send your account to a debt collection agency
• apply for payments to be deducted from any benefits you receive.

Disputing your bill

If you think you are not responsible for the bill, or you believe it is incorrect, please contact us.

We will put the debt recovery process on hold until the situation is resolved. We will also do this if CCW is involved and contact us on your behalf.

In the case of a disputed bill, you must pay any amount not in dispute immediately while we investigate.

We will not continue with debt recovery action if the bill is wrong. If we cannot agree with you, we will ask a court to decide.

What will happen if you do not pay

Usually, we leave a minimum of 14 days for you to pay your bill. If you do not pay or contact us we will send a further debt recovery document which will show how much you owe and what will happen if you don’t pay.

This could be either issuing a county court claim, passing your account to a debt collection agency or an application to the Department for Work and Pensions for direct payments from any benefits you receive.

While you have a debt outstanding with us, we may also contact you by phone or visit your home to discuss your account.

Please note these timings can vary according to an individual’s circumstances, particularly their payment record. If you have a poor payment history, we may shorten the timescales.

If you do not keep to a payment plan that we have agreed with you, we will cancel the plan and expect you to pay all outstanding charges.

We may use credit reference agencies to check the information we hold is correct. The agencies may record our search.

If we issue a county court claim, you will incur additional costs of at least £70. This may affect your credit rating and make it harder for you to obtain credit.

HM Courts and Tribunal Service issues the claim together with a response pack giving you instructions for dealing with the claim.

How enforcement action will affect you

Once a CCJ has been entered, we can ask the county court to issue any of the following enforcement proceedings:

• attachment of earnings – if you are employed, we ask the court to make an order to have payments taken directly from your pay. This means your employer will be given the details of your debt and of the CCJ.
• bankruptcy – we ask the court to declare you bankrupt.
• charging order – if you own your property, we ask the judge to make a charging order against it. If you have a mortgage, the lender is given the details of your debt and of the CCJ. A charging order is registered at the Land Registry and prevents the sale, remortgage or disposal of a property until the debt and the charge have been cleared.
• High Court Writ of Control – a High Court Enforcement Officer is instructed to take control of (seize) goods.
• Personal appearance at court – you are given an appointment to go to court and complete a financial statement.
• Warrant of execution – the court bailiff enters your home and seizes goods to sell at auction to raise the money to pay your debt and any additional costs incurred.

The court fees for serving and carrying out these actions and our legal fees will be added to the amount you owe.

Debt collection agencies and tracing agencies

If you do not pay, we may ask a debt collection agency to recover your debt. We do not need a CCJ to do this.

We may also pass your account to a tracing agency if you move out of a property leaving a debt and do not give us a forwarding address. The tracing agency will use various resources to find you and then will contact you to arrange payment.

We will send a letter to the last address we had for you before we pass your debt to a third party. If you do not respond to this, the debt collection agency will contact you by letter, phone, or text message and we may visit you.

All the agencies we use (except Searchlight Collections which is in the BWBSL group of companies) are registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). They are also members of the Credit Services Association (CSA).

Please contact us immediately if you have a complaint about any agency acting on our behalf. We will investigate your concerns and compensate you under our Wessex Water Promise if they have acted improperly.

Advice for tenants

Tenants are responsible for paying for the services we provide unless the landlord tells us otherwise. If your landlord has agreed to pay your water services charges for you, they must confirm this in writing to us.

If your landlord is responsible for the bill and we start to take debt recovery action against you because they have not paid, or if your bill is addressed to a previous tenant, please contact us.

If your rent includes a sum for your water services, this sum should reflect the amount we charge your landlord.

If you believe you are being charged too much for water by your landlord, you may be in a situation known as ‘water resale’.