NSW Excess Council water usage from leak

[Colint50]

I am writing on behalf of a friend...she has moved from her house and has been renting property so she can hopefully realise value increase in future years for retirement..at present rental is barely covering her cost and she is regarded as low income earner.
Issue - she has received last quarter water bill from council and the water usage component that tenant normally pays, is abnormally high...$1500 verses average $500 or less.
A few weeks before end of billing period, a guy mowing front lawn for tenant noticed a greener patch of grass around water meter area, and realised that she had a leak, and unfortunately this leak is on metered side. She contacted council (via agent) who organised a plumber that same day to come and repair leak. Tenant has lived at property for more than 2 years.

My friend contacted council twice to argue that tenant is not in a position to pay excess water usage fee, from a financial hardship point of view, and she is on a pension and requested a reduction...Council responded by saying as it wasn't a concealed leak, and the owner is obliged to pay, not the tenant. My friend is also not able to pay.
Council state that "owner is responsible and they need to ensure that the properties infrastructure is maintained in good working order. We encourage customers to monitor usage to minimise the likely hood of water losses by regularly reading their water meter."
Who regularly reads their water meter?
No water was pooling near meter as its sandy soil, and the tenant never walks over to that side of the property as she is limited in her activities, (may have some disability?), however she may not have even recognised a problem, even if she went over to this area at any stage.
Maybe its worth a visit with the tenant to the local Councillor or State MP to see what they can do?
Another solution may be for the tenant to ask for financial assistance from voluntary groups...although Council should not take money for such an issue when the money should be used for more needy things...

I would greatly appreciate any advice on how this matter may be resolved...Many thanks in advance

 

[Rob Legat - SBPL]

If you get a good outcome out of this process, you'll be lucky. As you have already found out, leaks 'downstream' of the water meter are the owner's responsibility. They're also not the tenant's liability as they're not responsible for 'fair wear and tear' issues. That is, unless there's something overt like the tenant been digging around the pipes.

From Council's point of view, it doesn't know whether the excess water usage is coming from. I know some Councils will send out a notice if they see a sudden spike in usage, but I don't know of any requirement to do so. The payment for water is also public money, so somebody in the community needs to pay the price. Then there's any state water component if that affects your area.

In my experience most Councils are rather hard-hearted about the issue. I've had clients who have historically not been connected to 'town water', because it wasn't available, have water services installed outside their property. They can connect to the service, but need to pay for internal piping first - at a significant cost - so they chose not to. They still got billed the full amount for all water services (just not usage) because the services were available and the 'could' be connected. They found out the hard way their liability to pay the charges are written into law (admittedly, in Queensland).

The possible exception to all the above is if Council did something to fiddle with the water pressure that may have caused the leak. Hard to prove, especially without other people having the same problem. Even then, you'd need to prove your pipes were in sufficient condition to handle normal pressure.

 

[Scruff]

Council responded by saying as it wasn't a concealed leak...

Umm - how do they come to that conclusion? As far as I can tell from what you've written, the leak was underground and therefore there's no doubt that it was concealed.

 

[Colint50]

Thank you for your responses...looks like its a visit to local pollies. I can see council sending overdue payment notices, etc unfortunately.