Electricity being turned off because previous owner hasn't paid their bills in full?!

[mecheng89]

Good evening Hubbers!

I came home to a nasty surprise this evening - my power was turned off, but not in the familiar lock shedding fashion. Yes, the municipality came to the power box in the street, and did this - 

We've been receving multiple "disconnection notices" from the council, and even though they weren't addressed to me specifically, they were attached to this house. Upon further inspection, the METER number the disconnection notice makes reference to is the water meter! Does this mean that the previous owners of this home didn't settle their water bill before they signed it over? Is this not something the lawyers should have made sure of?

Also, how does one read a water meter anyway? #grownupthings. 

 

Edited July 19, 2022 by mecheng89
Changed one photo for another

[Harryn]

http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2017/31.pdf 

[mecheng89]

Here's to hoping it's just a great big misunderstanding. 

[zaslayer]

Legally, a rates clearance certificate should have been provided to the transfer attorneys before transfer would have been allowed to take place..

Contact them, get the rates clearance certificate and then march down to the municipal office to have them correct the matter..

I had this before, though it was with a prepaid electricity meter, where they deducted half of whatever I paid towards units, to the previous owners debt.. I didn't even bother with asking transfer attorneys for rates clearance certificate, just went to the municipality and they corrected it, adding a credit for the money they deducted from me towards previous owners debt..

[Frosty]

Go to the ground floor of the council building in Alberton. Turn left into the area where you can pay your account; there's a lady at the back left corner, can't remember her name, but she has helped many people with same problem.

Otherwise contact Izak Berg (an independent ward councillor) and ask him for some advice; he seems to thrive on problems like this. You can search for IRASA on Facebook, and follow him; but beware of the many complaints on the group... as one person said, "Are this the place to complain?".

[LongDonkey]

Go with Frostys suggestion.

Be prepared to take a day or two'd leave to sit in someones office to get them to figure out they messed up.

Our neighbours did not pay their bill after the house burnt down. Municipality just kept making up numbers for water and lights and refused to acknowledge their systems were not working.
Neighbour just stopped paying as council are useless.
Joburg came to cut their cable in the good old way. Except they were useless as well and cut the cables to 4 other houses as well because, well the cables were all in the same box outside our neighbours house.

One neighbour was retired and sat in the Joburg offices for two days to push the idiots to come back out and fix their stuff up. 
The same neighbour spoke to the idiots who cut the cable and they said they could not fix their stuff up as they were there to cut the power and were sorry they cut everyone elses, but it was not their fauklt they cut the wrong cables.

Good times.

 

As for water meters, i think the last 4 digits make up one cubic meter or 1000 l (i think :)). Had to figure it out as well when they changed our water meter that broke.

[The Ouzo]

3 minutes ago, LongDonkey said:

As for water meters, i think the last 4 digits make up one cubic meter or 1000 l (i think :)). Had to figure it out as well when they changed our water meter that broke.

and now under E-***-ureni we have to read our own water meters and send in the readings as the meter readers contract was not renewed and they have not appointed anyone 

[mecheng89]

3 hours ago, ouzo said:

and now under E-***-ureni we have to read our own water meters and send in the readings as the meter readers contract was not renewed and they have not appointed anyone 

LOL, I'm supposed to do wut?

[Frosty]

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