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Billing
Adjustments
Leak
Adjustments
The City of Houston ordinances allow customers who have suffered an excusable defect to receive an adjustment to their bills. Credit will take the form of a rebate to the bill, not a refund. To qualify as excusable, a defect must be hidden, such as in a wall, underground, or in a toilet tank. Faucets are not considered hidden.
An application form must be submitted to Utility Customer Service, in some cases with a receipt for parts or repair bill, within six months of the repair. Customers may apply for no more than two such adjustments in any 12-month period for any one account.
Several
things can prevent this adjustment.
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- Ineffective repairs--sometimes the real problem is a second leak that needs to be repaired.
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- Long term leakage--allowing a leak to continue for over three months raises the average consumption.
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- A drop in actual consumption can mask the rise caused by the leak.
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Unusually Large Bills
Sometimes, things happen for which there is no known explanation. After both the City and the customer investigate, if no one knows why the bill increased, the City of Houston ordinances allows any single-family residential customer who receives a water bill for any given month that is greater than 200 percent of the average usage of the customer, to request an adjustment of the bill.
The customer must make an application within six months of receipt of such bill and only one such monthly bill out of any 12 consecutive monthly bills may be adjusted. In order to request such an adjustment, the customer must file an application for the adjustment on a form furnished by Utility Customer Service.
Several
things can prevent this adjustment.
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- Continued high consumption is considered evidence of a leak, and no adjustment will be granted.
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- Discovery of a reason for the high bill may warrant a different type of adjustment, or none.
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- If the consumption (not dollar amount) was not over twice the average, no adjustment will be granted.
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