If you have purchased a property in our geographic area, you don’t need to let us know about the purchase. Your solicitor or conveyancer will contact us as part of the settlement process.

Before you purchase a property, we recommend you

Your building inspector will be able to help you with this. Once the property has settled, as the new owner, you will be responsible for the repair and maintenance of pipes and plumbing. Find out more about your responsibilities.

What your solicitor/conveyancer should do

Before settlement

Prior to the sale of a property, typically your solicitor or conveyancer will arrange a Special Water Meter Read in order to correctly allocate responsibility for water and sewerage charges to the buyer and seller at the time of ownership change. This is in accordance with the REIQ Contract of Sale

At settlement

If there are any outstanding or overpaid amounts on the water and sewerage account, your solicitor or conveyancer usually reflects this in the final property settlement figures.

After settlement

Once the property has settled, typically your solicitor or conveyancer notifies the Queensland Land Registry of the change of property title. The Department of Natural Resources and Mines (DNRM) – also known as the Titles Office - then sends an official notification of the change to us.
This may take several weeks or months from settlement date. If you have not received a bill in your name within three months of the property settlement, we recommend you contact your solicitor or conveyancer to check on its progress.

Change of property owner’s name

While we wait for this information from DNRM, you may receive a bill from us in the previous property owners’ name; however, once we have received the change of ownership notification, we will reissue the bill in the new owner’s name.
If we have not received change of ownership notification, unfortunately we have to wait until we receive formal notification from DNRM. You may choose to follow up with your solicitor or conveyancer to check its progress.

Charges you are responsible for as the buyer

The new owner of the property is responsible for paying the water and sewerage account when the next bill is issued. Any outstanding balance after a change of ownership will become the responsibility of the new property owner, as any debt remains with the land, not with the customer.

IMPORTANT

We have changed how we bill accounts in Somerset and Lockyer Valley to make it simpler for customers to:

  • track water usage,
  • sooner detect leaks on their property, and 
  • manage their water and sewerage budgets.

For the April-June 2019 quarter, the change* involves:

  • the introduction of a new, simpler meter reading and billing schedule, and
  • switching service charges from advance to arrears, to align with water usage charges.

Currently, water and sewerage bills are issued up to seven weeks after water meter readings, meaning leaks can go unnoticed for long periods of time wasting water and money. 

After the change*, this will be closer to seven days. 

For solicitors and customers looking to calculate property settlement figures, the change also means a new way to calculate a Water Cost Estimate*.

Under the old way of billing, water and sewerage service charges were fixed, i.e. Tuesday 01 January 2019-Saturday 31 March 2019; however, under the new, simpler way, this is no longer the case. 

Simpler Billing means service charge periods now start from the same date as the last meter reading date.

To calculate the unbilled service charges a vendor is responsible for, simply multiply the number of days between the last meter reading and the settlement date.

*For Lockyer Valley and Somerset accounts ONLY