you will have to pay. When i lived in my other house, I had a water meter fitted, and the reading 'pads' were put on the side of the house so readings could be taken whether I was in or out. They had two pads side by side, as for some reason they'd put in a meter for upstairs and one for downstairs. for 18 months we were getting ridiculously low bills, I mean amounts like £27 for 6 months. Then one day there was a knock at the door and the man from the water company laughed and said - you have two meters! yes, i said, i know, the pads are together on the side of the house. well he said, we've only been reading one. Now we've got two readings you'll get a proper bill. We then had a bill for £345 - pay within 7 days. Luckily we were in a situation to be able to afford this and did so, but I didn't half give them a flea in their ear it was their meters they put them in, they should know where they are and how to read them - just out of curiosity I went to the citizens advice and they said, if we hadn't been able to afford it straight off like we did, they thought that given the situation as it was the company's fault we would have been given extra time to pay with no penalties, but it had to be paid. Hope this helps - I was told this applied to all utility companies at the time (roughly 8 years ago)