The payment option is intended for tenanted properties. It is not available in these three situations:

1.      You have a shared meter set-up, where the fixed charge is shared over multiple dwellings.

2.      Your property has no water meter and you pay a notional fixed wastewater charge per month.  

3.      You have no wastewater services.

The bill will remain in the property owner’s name, and they will receive a copy of each bill. Property owner’s still have final responsibility for payment. We don’t send bills in tenants’ names, but we can send them a copy of each bill. 

The July bill showing your fixed charge will have a bigger total than normal.

The charges on the bill are:

• the monthly volumetric water charge
• the monthly volumetric wastewater charge
• the final pro-rata fixed wastewater charge for the previous billing year
• ​any administration charges or account fees 
• the full fixed wastewater charge for the upcoming year.  This is your one-off payment. 

We do not separate out the charges. They will appear on the bill once a year as a bulk lot.

For the rest of the year (to the following June), the monthly bills will only set out the volumetric charges:

• the monthly volumetric water charge
• the monthly volumetric wastewater charge
• any administration charges or account fees 

When you opt in to this payment method you must provide the tenant’s name and contact details.

This automatically gives your tenants authority to discuss the account, making things easier for you.

What is an authorised tenant?
 

You can opt in before June 22 each year for the upcoming yearly billing period (1 July to 30 June).

To opt in for the period of 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2020, please contact us before 22 June 2019.

Once you have opted in, if we do not hear from you we will continue to bill you the full amount for your fixed charge, once a year in July.
 

You don’t need to opt out if you have never opted in. Your bill will continue as they have been.

If you have opted in and now wish to cancel you can opt of before 22 June each year.

If you opt out you will return to being billed monthly for your fixed charge from 1 July of the year you opt out.

There are three ways to opt out:

1. Complete the online opt-out form and send it to us.
2. Email info@water.co.nz
3. Call us on (09) 442 2222, press 3, then option 1

Please provide this information:

Property details

• Water account number
• Name of the legal owner
• Address including suburb

 Your details

• Name
• Phone number
• Email address
• Property owner or property manager

You can opt-in if each property has an individual water meter.  Just complete this form for each property. If you have more than five accounts please call us to set this up.
 

Yes but we recommend you speak to your tenant to ensure the account is paid up to date before we generate/produce the July bill.

Direct debit payments cover the full amount of the bill each month.

If you or your tenants are paying via direct debit, you will need to discuss payment of the July/August 2018 bill. This bill will be higher than usual, as it will include the annual payment for fixed charges. See How we calculate our charges

If you sell your property, your solicitor will let us know your settlement date as part of the settlement process.
We will use this date to:

• calculate the pro-rata amount of the annual fixed charge and
• credit that amount to the water account
• your solicitors will then get a final invoice for your property as part our standard process.

For example, if you sell your house in January (seven months after you paid the full fixed charge in July), you would receive a credit to your account of the pro-rated amount for the year remaining (five months).

If your settlement date is July or August, we will automatically opt you out, so that no pro-rata calculation will be needed.

The landlord is still ultimately responsible for ensuring the water account is paid and our supply contract is with you as the property owner – see the customer contract. Recovery of any unpaid usage is between the landlord and the tenant and depends on the conditions of the tenancy agreement in place.

See also the government site Tenancy Services: Water and wastewater charges

If you wish to opt in, you can do so before 23rd June of that year.

For example, if you bought a property in November 2017, you can opt in for the period July 2018 to June 2019, by providing a correctly completed opt-in request by 23rd June 2018. See above example of request.

Under the terms of our supply contract there is a fixed wastewater charge.