Water charges have increased almost 10% this year in Aotearoa’s biggest city, but customers of one water company say prices have spiked dramatically.
Fair Go had more than 100 Auckland Veolia customers get in touch complaining about abnormally high water bills from the company.
One of those customers is Miriama Kimiangatau, who received a bill for almost $1000 worth of water use in just one month.
"I mean it's so outrageous," she told Fair Go.
It doesn’t make sense to Kimiangatau because it’s only herself and her three kids in the rental property.
"I leave quite early and get the kids out the door before 8am," she said.
"We don't have a pool; we don't have any gardens to water. We just have our showers in the evening and showers in the morning, and then there’s what we use for our dishwasher and washing machine, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary."
Veolia used to issue its bills every three months. Since Kimiangatau and her family moved to the house last November, on average she’s been charged $220 a cycle – about $70 a month.
In May 2023 Veolia switched its billing cycle to monthly and when Kimiangatau got her bill for that month – billed in June – it left her completely stunned.
"I received a bill just under $950 and that was only for one month's usage," she said.
"It was so shocking, and it was really upsetting."
Before this bill, Kimiangatau's household was estimated to be using around 12 kilolitres of water a month. But in June, Veolia charged them with using 164 kilolitres, which Kimiangatau thought was impossible for a family of her size.
Carla Gee from EcoMatters Environment Trust agrees.
"That's like 1170 bath loads of water in a month – that's just not possible," Gee said.
EcoMatters helps families on a daily basis to understand their bills and make choices to cut down on costs. In this case, Gee said something’s not right.
"The first thing that we would encourage people to think about is, have the conditions in the household all of a sudden changed?"
If the household owner or tenant doesn’t believe their usage has changed, the next step is to check for a leak.
"Just do a slow walk around your property and you're looking for water pooling anywhere around your property and definitely around your driveway as well.
"The most important thing is that they need to locate the leak and get it fixed."
But if your property passes a leak test, Gee said to take it up with your supplier.
"There's something wrong going on with how that [Kimiangatau's] bill has been charged and I would most certainly be going back to the supplier and trying to find out what that error or issue is," she said.
Because Kimiangatau is renting, she took it up with her property manager who, as the account holder, contacted Veolia on her behalf.
Veolia told Kimiangatau's property manager that there hadn’t been an actual physical reading of the meter at the house since she moved in, meaning all the bills she’s received since then are based on estimates, and the $900 bill is a catch-up bill.
"I was actually looking at it and thinking 'how I am going to pay this high amount?'" Kimiangatau said.
Fair Go wanted to know how the estimates were so wrong, and why a physical meter reading didn’t take place.
Veolia explained that actual readings of a water meter are done every two months, and an estimated reading is done in between actual readings.
"The estimated calculations in this case were based on historical daily averages of 0.4 kilolitres per day," it said.
"Unfortunately, in this case the actual readings could not occur because of a flooded meter box caused by the weather events in February and an overgrown section in April."
But Kimiangatau disputed this, and said her meter wasn’t flooded in February and even if the grass around the meter was overgrown, it could still be clearly seen.
She added that the property had passed two leak tests. According to Kimiangatau, it seemed that Veolia couldn’t figure out the reason for the high water bill.
"I was failing to get an answer. I just feel like I was being told it could be usage, it could be estimates, but you should make a payment plan and pay the bill."
Kimiangatau turned to her Facebook community for answers and got a lot of responses from Veolia customers who were experiencing the exact same thing.
Let’s Rent property management director Shadi Salehpour knows of at least three tenants in the Auckland suburb of Papakura who’ve received unusually high water bills from Veolia.
"Papakura residents are screaming that they've got high water bills, some have $500, $600, $900. I don't think that's normal."
One of her tenants received a bill for over $700.
"I nearly fell off my chair," Salehpour said.
"Alarm bells start ringing. There must be a massive leak and then once you eliminate that, you’re thinking 'what is the tenant doing?' which creates tension between myself and my tenants."
But Salehpouri said she knows her tenants well and has a fair idea of how much families are using in a month, so a big bill stands out.
One of her tenants was charged $774.42 in April, their last quarterly bill before Veolia made the switch to monthly bills. Their average quarterly bill was $470. This tenant has also had a couple of high charges after Veolia’s switch too.
Veolia told Fair Go the tenant’s April bill was based on an actual meter reading. But the tenant is adamant they didn’t use $700 worth of water in three months.
It added that the more recent high charges were estimates based on previous actual readings.
"The most likely reason is a water leak or water use," the company said.
This didn't make sense to the tenant. They had someone leave the property this year, which meant one less person in the house, and their kids were out at school every day, so the numbers weren't adding up.
Salehpour also did a couple of leak tests at the property, and they didn’t turn up any results either. So as the property manager, Salehpour's company footed the bill and now the tenant owes them.
"It builds a bit of a tension between us and our tenants. It's never easy," Salehpour said.
It seems Veolia has some tightening up to do.
It told Fair Go its new billing system has had teething issues for around 1000 Papakura customers.
Its system is designed to exclude unusually high readings in the estimates but due to a system anomaly, in some cases, the high readings were included.
Veolia has apologised and is working to resolve the issue with its customers.
Since Fair Go's been involved, Veolia's contacted Kimiangatau and Salehpour to help sort the issue.
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