Decision Report 201907203

Summary

C complained that Scottish Water had failed to respond appropriately to a number of flooding incidents in their property. C said that Scottish Water had not been open or honest about the cause of the flooding and were refusing to take the only action which would guarantee the protection of their property. C said that Scottish Water’s position had changed whenever they were presented with evidence, which suggested they were responsible for the flooding.

Scottish Water denied that they had acted unreasonably, or that they had failed to investigate the causes of the flooding experienced by C’s property. Scottish Water said that they were not responsible for damaged pipework within the property and the public sewerage network had been working properly. They said that there were likely to be different causes for the flooding incidents C had experienced, but that all of them had been investigated. Scottish Water acknowledged that this had taken time, but said there had been a need to liaise with a number of other stakeholders, including the local authority and utility companies.

We found that Scottish Water had investigated the incidents of flooding. Additionally, they had correctly informed C that they were not responsible for flooding which emanated from private pipework. C maintained that the private pipework had been damaged by the failure of the public sewer network, which Scottish Water were responsible for. We did not find evidence which supported this, and it was not the only possible cause of damage to the pipework as C had suggested. Therefore, we did not uphold the complaint.

C also complained that Scottish Water failed to handle their complaint reasonably. We considered that Scottish Water investigated the complaint appropriately. We did not uphold the complaint.