We’re being soaked as our water bill spills over into four figures

WE MOVED into our home in January 2013. On February 7, 2017, South West Water (SWW) replaced the water meter. The supplier’s high usage team then advised us that we were using a great deal of water.

A leak test revealed no problem. SWW said the old meter probably had not recorded our usage correctly and said it wanted to raise our monthly payments to £94 (which would have worked out at £1,128 for a year). We agreed to pay £86 while it investigated.

In September 2018, the meter was finally replaced. SWW then said that it would review our consumption from October 2018 to April 2019. But I said I did not want to wait for a review.

Due to a prostate operation that my husband had and the fact that my 89-year-old mother is living with us, we need to run the washing machine on a daily basis. But, even so, if the average water bill is around £460 a year, why is ours so much higher? A. R., Cornwall. IT SEEMS likely you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned your husband’s health and caring for your mother helping to create more washing.

This is where metering — which can seem fairer in most cases — comes unstuck. People caring for parents or who fall sick and are forced to use more water to keep themselves and their clothes clean are effectively punished with higher bills.

SWW says tests show that the water meter it replaced for you last September was marginally under-recording.

However, your daily consumption has since dropped from 500 litres to 260.

SWW does admit that it took too long to resolve your concerns and fell ‘far short of the high standards’ it sets itself.

It has now provided assistance in understanding usage patterns and is carrying out a free water conservation audit and providing free water-saving equipment. It has written off £1,407 in charges associated with your faulty meter and paid you £150 compensation.

So, while to start with it made a mess of things, it deserves credit for responding with an extremely generous resolution. MY STATE pension forecast offers £134.54 per week if I do not pay any more National Insurance contributions, or £158.02 per week if I make extra payments to cover 11 years.

But I have read that anyone retiring after April 2016 would get £164.35 per week anyway, so is it worth me paying extra? V. T., Essex. a SIMPLE question, yet this will be a long and complex answer.

Like many, you have taken the misleading impression that everyone will get the full new basic state pension, which is currently £164.35 per week. But this is available in full only to those who have paid full national Insurance (nI) without rebate for at least 35 years.

Many people — you included — paid less national Insurance because they did not contribute to state pension top-ups such as Serps and the state second pension under the old system. Instead, they were guaranteed a pension by their employer.

a complex system compares what you would receive under the old and new systems and awards the higher amount. Your forecast says you have built up a £134.54 per week state pension.

However, if you continue to earn nI credits until you hit state pension age in three years’ time, then you will get £158.02 per week in today’s terms.

You accumulate credits via employment, through receiving carer’s or other credits, or by making voluntary payments known as Class 3 nI, which are currently £14.65 per week (around £760 a year). You have also been offered the option to plug gaps in your nI record covering 11 years from 2006/07 to 2016/17, when, presumably, you were not working. You have until april 5, 2023, to make the payments, which range from £689 for the furthest-back years to £733.20 for the most recent.

I took your case to Malcolm McLean, a senior consultant with actuary Barnett Waddingham.

Like me, he thinks that, so long as you continue gaining nI credits until you hit state pension age in 2022, there is little point in paying extra, because you are so close to having the maximum pension.

There is another complexity. Under the old rules, you needed 30 years of national Insurance credits to receive the full basic state pension (now £125.95 per week); under the new one, you need 35.

If you already have 30 years under the old system, which ended on april 5, 2016, making back-payments to plug gaps from before this won’t boost your new state pension. Money Mail has published cases where people have paid Class 3 nI and received no extra pension — and then couldn’t get their money back!

However, if people have fewer than 30 years’ credit under the old system, it is slightly cheaper to use the back-payment facility than to make Class 3 voluntary contributions for this and subsequent tax years.

I am not surprised you’re confused, as this system is too complex. I suggest you contact the Department for Work and Pensions and ask specifically if it would benefit you to pay one extra year.

Mr McLean adds: ‘ Given the complexity and the many pitfalls for consumers, the Government should either radically simplify the system or make it its business to ensure that people are helped, instead of simply providing information on request and then leaving it to them to work their way through the maze.’