How to dispute your city municipal account?
Disputing your municipal account is never easy, but by following these steps the process should be manageable.
Has your municipal account skyrocketed, to your utmost shock, due to billing discrepancies you do not even understand?
If you need to query something on your statement it is important to give the city as much detail as possible.
The first step in the query process is to log your question with Joburg Connect, which you can do by calling the call centre: 0860 Joburg or 0860 56 28 74.
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You’ll need your municipal account number, which is printed on your statement.
When calling, remember to ask for a reference number and quote this number when following up your query, to prevent duplicate queries being logged.
However, what do you do when your issue is not getting resolved to your satisfaction? This is where the dispute process commences, as a customer or consumer for the the inflated municipal bill.
The dispute should be logged in writing with the city, if the query is not resolved within 21 days.
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According to the city website, customers can dispute their bill by directing concerns to the city’s valuation department. “Customers or consumers are protected by Section 102 of the Municipal System Act, and its important to provide proof of information that there is something wrong with your bill,” said the city on their website. “Note further that the form in which the law allows the dispute to be raised is just as critical as its content. If the law provides that the dispute must be raised in writing, then raising it telephonically will not assist the customer in arguing that it is entitled to withhold payment in terms of section 102.”
In order to qualify as a dispute, for the purposes of delaying payment, the customer must:
• Raise the ‘problem’ with the municipality in the prescribed form,
• Specify which amount, and in which invoice, is being disputed, and
• Explain the reason why the amount charged is wrong.
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