Council contests claim by "overcharged" tenant in water rates dispute

A London borough is pursuing legal action against a tenant who has claimed he should get a refund of water charges.

The unnamed tenant was reported by the BBC as having claimed that the Royal Borough of Kingston-Upon-Thames had overcharged tenants to whom it sold water.

This would be in line with a High Court ruling in 2016 that the London Borough of Southwark was not an agent for Thames Water when it levied water charges on tenants but rather bought water from the company and then re-sold it, and so was covered by charging limits in the Water Resale Order 2006.

Southwark decided to repay 48,000 current and former tenants £28.6m.

But Kingston has said it did not do this and is seeking a High Court declaration to that effect.

A Kingston spokesperson told Local Government Lawyer: “The council collected water charges on behalf of Thames Water from its tenants until 1 April 2018 and at no point did the council act as a water reseller, or inflate charges.”