Hidralia

Hi I live in Manilva and want to know if there is an alternative water company I can use if I do not want to use Hidralia.  The house currently has a contract with Hidralia and is on a water meter.  Is there any other company you can use or does it have to be Hidralia?

I take it that you know by now that you cannot contract a water supply with anyone else but Hidralia. It is the Town Hall that decides which company will get the contract for the entire municipality. Once they've done that we residents only have 2 options, do without a water supply or sign up with the sole supplier in the area, which is Hidralia.

Hidralia seem to have problems at the moment although nothing has been said about it in the press. In Hacienda Guadalupe they hired a sub contractor to lay some new pipes a few months ago, foor reasons not known to us. The job was not finished, tons of sand were dumped on top of the pipes and then the rains came. Most of the sand finished up on the main road. Since then it's happened twice more. The Ministry of Public Works [Fomento], have had to clear the sand from the main road 3 times in 4 months and they're very angry about it. The last time they took photographs of the unfinished job and said they were going to sue Hidralia. Obviously nothing more has happened, the job remains unfinished. Then there is the question of a broken sewage pipe in another part of the urbanisation which affects five houses. Hidralia are aware of the problem but are doing nothing to repair the broken pipe. The contract between the Community of Owners and Hidralia states that only they can carry out the repairs. The administrators, Ammex are proving to be useless, saying it's not their job to sort out this sort of problem and they cannot force Hidralia to do anything. One wonders what we pay the administrators for.

Hi

I live in the Estepona Municipality and an Hidralia  Sub Contactor has been doing some laying of some new pipes in our Urbanisation. Everything seems to have been completed sucessfully. Although there does  seems to be an ongoing problem with their Billing System. We are still being Billed for water that we used in 2016. Sometimes the Bills arrive long after your Bank Account has been Debited(Direct Debit). Can someone shed some light on the Current Billing system for Hidralia.

Thank You

Really sorry to but in on something I have no direct knowledge of, but if I may just offer a suggestion, contractually?

if the contract with the water company is with the town hall and Hadralia, and their treatment of yourselves with billing and with unfinished infrastructure is giving you problems perhaps the following points may apply?

if the water company are commencing works without informing the public through notice of what work it is, when it starts and finishes, and the disruption it may cause, the contract with the local town hall is not up to purpose, or it's being flaunted.

if the billing is inaccurate to the end user, or is not understandable, again this should be part of the contract negotiations and any complaints procedures through the contract owners to improve.

If you have no alternative supplier, this is a chosen supplier by the town hall and isn't it true they should receive complains directly and actin them?   Usually the last thing council administrators want to do is carry out extra work, so bombard them with any justifiable complaints and let them take these up in the main contract, or explain to you why not and action accordingly.

since the unpopular privatisation ( at the time) in the UK we have ended up with many very accountable water companies doing great jobs and some who have to be taken to task, and even thou they make good profit, we still have cheaper supplies and more extended repairs than ever before. (Maybe mention this (mildly and politely). 

This message was last edited by briando55 on 19/04/2017.

Thanks Briando55. Having lived in the UK for 40 years and in Spain for 35 I am very aware of the difference in the way the 2 countries work. Solutions that would work in the UK cannot be applied here. Hidralia will have been chosen as the supplier for a reason and for that reason the Town Hall will not want to rock the boat in favour of the consumer. Here we face this problem on a daily basis, the convenience of the consumer matters little. Utility companies in general in Spain have a very poor reputation for quality of service and customer service. In my experience a complaint to the Ombudsman, [Defensor del Pueblo]. is the best approach to take, but it is a process that could drag on for a year or 2. What I'm trying to ascertain is whether the situation where I live is unique to us or whether there are widespread problems with Hidralia. Only the Ombudsman could force the town hall to accept responsibility for what Hidralia is [not] doing.

@nigel188.

Hi, the predecessor to Hidralia was Acuagest, their billing system was appalling and there was evidence that we were being overcharged. Eventually a complaint was lodged with the Defensor del Pueblo, it didn't do us, the consumers, any good but it lead to Acuagest being replaced as the supplier. If you want to follow this path you will need some ability to communicate in Spanish. The website is: http://www.defensordelpuebloandaluz.es/ 

My experience of dealing with them was very positive, they are very much on the side of the consumer.