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Got my electricity cut off again over the weekend. I tried telling Dewa that they had never sent me a bill. They don't dispute never raising a bill, but they don't seem to think it is an excuse for not making a payment.

I have a bill for about 14,000 just for water for a studio appartment which I have since discovered is due to an open drain valve above the ceiling when I moved in which was constantly flowing water straight to the drain. It has been like that for some time as the previous tenant had the same problem.

The previous tenant told me he had a bill for about 10,000 AED for water also. Dewa threatened to cut off services to his business if he didn't pay the bill which would obviously destroy his livelyhood so he paid the money. He tried recovering the cost from the landlord, but he stopped answering his calls. The previous tenant doesn't seem to have any faith in the judicial system in this country.

It's pretty clear my landlord isn't going to pay the damage without a fight. Is it worth taking him to court? Are court orders enforced in this country?

I had to deposit some post dated cheques with Dewa to get my electricity reconnected. I thought there wasn't much point in refusing to pay, they will just make it impossible to get a Dewa connection ever again and give me a travel ban for good measure.

Oh, while I spent a couple of hours in the billing hall waiting area at DEWA (which is full of angry people in similar situations). The woman beside me was saying she just got back from holiday and was arrested at the airport and went to prison because she accumulated a 16000AED DEWA bill while she was away and she has no idea why. I'm guessing it was more of a holding cell than a real prison - my wife went through a similar thing.

It seems the justice system in this country is rivaled only by the quality of plumbing.

That sucks mate, and dewa is pretty horrid at sending bills from what I keep hearing. So the best thing is to register online and check every your account every month. I do all my Dewa transactions online and the only time I ever had to visit them was when I needed to transfer the connection in my flat from the owners name to mine.

Personally I've never had any issues with DEWA and sincerly hope it remains this way but everyone now and then a story like yours pops up. Another one was when they started guesstimating usage than actually going according to the meter readings and people landed up with real inflated bills. I've heard a few of them went through a lenghty process and got it sorted out.

And this is news to me that now that they are busting people at the airports for DEWA bills as well !

I did register online because I know from experience that even if you don't receive a bill, you still get your utilities cut off if you don't pay it.

Dewa just haven't raised a bill for me yet - I check the status online frequently. It was sitting in the Landlords name for the last 3 months. My biggest problem is having to pay almost 14,000 for the water that ran directly to drain because someone left a valve open above the ceiling. According to DEWA, I have to pay it, but I should be able to recover the cost from the landlord. I don;t know about that, the last tenant was in the same situation and he gave up.

blueshift wrote:It's pretty clear my landlord isn't going to pay the damage without a fight. Is it worth taking him to court? Are court orders enforced in this country?

Well there lies an interesting question? I would suggest the answer lies within four conditions;

1. The quality of, and terminology within your Tenancy Agreement.
2. Your Landlord’s Nationality.
3. Your Nationality.
4. And ultimately, how much money you are prepared to lose in attempting to reclaim the wasted portion of your AED 14,000 bill?

I realise it’s the easiest thing in the world to give advice as a 3rd party, but I believe I would write the above off to experience and explore other avenues for compensation from the guilty party, whoever that may be.

As with most things here when trying to fight when something is a matter of principle for eg:- 1000's worth of salik fines when you've been on vacation and your car has been sitting covered in a garage. Its not worth the hassle.

Another thing and I know this doesn't help but just trying to understand, valve in the ceiling going into the drain ( floor ) what you had waterfall fixture in you apt mate

I know weird things happens, like in the begining it would start raining from the kitchen light fixture on odd occasions, talk about a bad mix of eletricity and water ! Called Nakheel as well as the landlord. Both of them came on a couple of occasions and could not find anything, not even watermarks anywhere ? I went up into the ceiling ( false ceiling ) to poke about aswell and could not find anything ? Fortunately this has stopped and hasn't happened in over a year now.

So was just wondering if you could see or even hear water constantly, did'nt the curious bugger in you wanted to see what its all about ?

OK DD, you think of the drain as the thing in floor, but I mean the vertical pipe that rises up through the building and all these waste water recepticles (shower, toilet, sink etc) dischage into. It did make some noise, but I only noticed the noise when I was in the bathroom and I assumed it was water flowing to other peoples appartments. I didn't suspect that there was a pipe discharging to drain above my ceiling - maybe it shouldn't surprise me.

Incidently, it did rain in my kitchen from time to time. The reason is that the condensate drip tray below the AC unit discharges to the sewer drain also - but it connects to this other drain in the ceiling first. When too much water enters the sewer drain at one time (eg like when I empty the bath) it backs up and comes out the airconditioning condensate drip tray. My kitchen has stopped doing this since the valve has been shut, then removed.

I also thought it had something to do with the Aircon as there is a vent right above the light. Maybe condesation forming on it and dripping down ?

Anyways mate good luck, looks like you've been dealt another bad hand out of no fault of your own as many others have too. Honestly in this instance I can't blame Dewa, no matter how monkey their service seems to be. A utility was used and someone has to pay.

I think someone should have warned you, its surprising that the previous tennant got a massive bill and didn't so anything about it, alteast look why it was so and bothered to turn off that thing or if it was brought to attention of the Landlord he should have looked into it or again at the very least warned you.

IMO the landlord is accountable for crappy plumbing in his/her apt and not the tenant.

Thanks DD - I'll update when something develops.

You could have had a blocked condensate drain and an overflowing condensate tray, but this would tend to cause a steady drip. If you had a minute or so of rain, then that was water going into one drain and comming out your condensate tray.

I looked into it and I don't think there are any consedation trays as this place has district cooling and not your conventional A/C.

wow you should invest in a solar panel

blueshift, what a horrible situation! I think that you and the previous tenant should initiate court action if you have evidence that your landlord knew of the open valve but did nothing about it. I guess you have no choice but to pay the bill for now. It really makes one think that they should add a clause in the rental contract about how to handle leaks in the infrastructure that result in excessive cost to the tenant when it was no fault of their own.

You'd still probably end up paying more in court and lawyers fees, as with most things here, it not worth the hassle.

Maybe RERA but they are also pretty much useless aswell.