A new judgment could be regarded as an important victory for property owners who receive large and delayed utility bills, according to Nicholas Gangiah and Fatima Gattoo, of Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, in an article on the Fin24 site. The Gauteng High Court judgment grants relief to property owners who have received exorbitant utility bills after a number of years.

The case relates to the bills for estimated water consumption which was received by Argent over a period of about 5.5 years.

Argent duly paid these charges.

During this period the Ekurhuleni Municipality failed to take actual readings of the water meter.

In 2015, Argent received a bill for the difference between its actual usage and estimated consumption amounting to R1 152 666.98. Relying on prescription, Argent claimed that they were not liable for discrepancies in the costs, which were older than three years at the time when they finally received the bill.

The municipality challenged this argument by arguing that the excess water charges, older than three years had not prescribed because the prescription period only commenced when the client was billed by the municipality. It also argued that the fact that the consumer regularly made monthly payments, based on their estimated consumption, amounts to an acknowledgement of its debt and as such it interrupts the prescription period.

The municipality lost on both of these points.

Full Fin24 report