Axarquía water bill row: Residents threaten to bring in lawyers over high demands

The twenty or so residents of La Viñuela in the Axarquía who have received extremely high water bills, and which SUR in English reported on recently, have said that they are going to hire lawyers if the town hall does not resolve the problem.

British resident Paul Rouse set up a Facebook page to help those affected. He told SUR, "So far, as far as we know, nobody has paid these amounts and we have all returned the bills."

Rouse went on to say that the mayor of La Viñuela, José Juan Jiménez, has refused to recalculate the bills. "The most striking thing is that they are all bills for one quarter of 2022 - we have had normal bills since then."

One of the highest bills was sent to Scottish couple Thomas and Gillian Hodge. They received a water bill for 45,220.04 euros last month, corresponding to the second quarter of 2022. "Of those three months we were only there for two weeks," said the couple, who are currently in Scotland. They say they did not refill the swimming pool and that their garden requires "no watering at all".

The mayor explained that the bills come from the tax department of Malaga's provincial administration, the Diputación. He said, "The town hall can do nothing, we will act in accordance with the law."

A bylaw was modified two years ago in line with drought decrees issued by the Junta de Andalucía asking Axarquía town halls to reduce their water consumption by 20 per cent.