South East Water UK Reviews 

381
TrustScore 1.5 out of 5

1.4

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Review summary

Created with AI, based on recent reviews

Considering 113 reviews, most reviewers were let down by their experience overall. Consumers frequently complain about shocking price hikes, continuous billing increases, and severe disruptions to their daily water supply without receiving adequate support or reliable information. Reviewers also feel deeply frustrated by poor communication, long waiting times, and a complete lack of management accountability regarding ongoing infrastructure failures. However, some customers also noted that specific staff members provided polite, helpful, and exceptionally professional assistance during their phone calls. A few reviewers additionally experienced efficient handling of account inquiries, successful billing adjustments, and quick resolutions provided by supportive employees. People appreciated these rare instances of excellent customer service when dealing with the company.

What people talk about most

Service

Customers had negative experiences with service, noting prolonged water outages and rising bills. Consumers... See more

Price

Reviewers express profound dissatisfaction with the soaring price of water, describing bills as excessively... See more

Customer service

People report negative experiences with customer service, describing it as disorganised and ineffective.... See more

Staff

Users describe negative interactions with staff, expressing widespread frustration over poor communication,... See more

Location

Consumers express deep frustration with location-based water shortages and supply failures affecting multiple... See more

Reviews shaping this summary

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Hosepipe ban since July 2025 last year & still in force as of 13.01 .2026. This company has no resiliency whatsoever as they have sold off their estates for house building etc. Their website need a lo... See more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

How can a company possibly justify the answer we don't know when the water outage will end. Clueless bunch of muppets who think it is acceptable to increase bills by 40%. It's not as though you can... See more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

It’s not just south east water that’s useless. The subcontractors are just as bad. Poor communication, no work ethic, unreasonable attitude. Not fit for purpose. It’s rotten all the way from top to bo... See more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Just had a phone call from SEW about our ongoing low pressure, they still will not admit there is a problem even though two of their staff own visited us admitted there was a problem supplying our co... See more


Company details

  1. Water Utility Company

Written by the company

Our aim is to be the water company people want to be supplied by and want to work for. Manage your water account online 24/7 – View your bills, manage your move, make payments and manage your Direct Debit.


Contact info

1.4

Bad

TrustScore 1.5 out of 5

381 reviews

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No recent history of asking for reviews

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1.4

All reviews

(381)

108 reviews in the last 12 months

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Rated 1 out of 5 stars

They can't keep getting away with this

Scoring 1 star as there's no option for zero. They can't keep getting away with this. Taking increasingly ridiculous amounts of my money, paying themselves massive dividends, pumping illegal levels of sewage into the sea. "increasing our water efficiency campaigns" is insulting, telling us to use less water when our supplies are completely cut off. Bottled water stations are a joke, roads are gridlocked and they can't meet demand, now people are panic buying all the water in supermarkets. How about you just supply the water you're extorting me for!? "During the hot weather we are seeing increased water use in some areas ", what did they think was going to happen during the hot weather...? Clearly no effort made to anticipate this obvious increased water use. I AM SICKENED BY THE GREED, SORT IT OUT AND SWITCH ON THE WATER I'M PAYING RIDICULOUS AMOUNTS OF MONEY FOR.

May 28, 2026
Unprompted review
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Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Oh south east water

Oh south east water. Quick enough to take your money but yet again no water coming out of the taps. Whole town has no water now for 2 days and this follows on from the 5 days without water last July. They open just one measly bottled water station in a Sainsbury’s car park for the whole town which has made the roads gridlocked and not everyone has hours to queue up. No water as of yet delivered to house. The elderly and vulnerable will be struggling with this during a heatwave like we have at the moment. South east water should be stripped of their license. Truely awful organisation and they should be ashamed of themselves!

May 28, 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Where’s our water

It’s the 27th May 2026, I have just bought the last bottles of water from the co-op in Whitstable. I have messaged both of my children to stay at their partners houses and made the last cup of tea from the kettle. I have searched for containers to fill up with water when I visit work tomorrow and have urinated into a bucket and watered the garden with it.
I have not received any communication or water from my local authority and dread what the elderly and very young are doing to cope. I just hope that tomorrow brings communication from south east water.

May 27, 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

No water again during the hottest days…

No water again during the hottest days of the year. Exactly the same situation as last year, and still zero responsibility from the company. People are paying bills every month and expecting a basic service, yet every summer it’s the same chaos and excuses. Completely unacceptable and frustrating for everyone affected.

May 27, 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Yet again for two years running here in…

Yet again for two years running here in Whitstable and herne bay we have no water. The same tired problem as last year. You would of thought that during the winter they would of corrected the issue. To compact the problem thousands of new homes are due to come on line over the next few years. If the infrastructure can't cope now what's it going to be like when these new homes come on line. This is shear incompetence on the part of the water company, what the hell are we paying water rates for when they can't supply it. Same problem, same excuses and yet again putting the problem on their customers. Sort your life out southeast your a joke. SHOULD WE ALL STOP PAYING OUR BILLS UNTIL YOU GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER!

May 27, 2026
Unprompted review
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Rated 1 out of 5 stars

I have to give 1 star as not able to…

I have to give 1 star as not able to score 0. What a joke of a company. Taking ever gargantuan amounts of money from me, and paying itself more dividends, whilst providing me with a poorer service. One day of sunshine and now told to expect disruption to my water supply in Maidstone. How does this shit company keep getting away with it?

May 26, 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

It's sickening that South East Water…

It's sickening that South East Water have increased our monthly change over less than 2 years from under £80 to £205 (or nearly £2500 A YEAR !!!) for the same level water use in 3 bed house in Kent - data show average charge for household like us is currently no more than £400 annually.....so I've no words to for the anger and worry we feel today after being told to our latest meter readings for April is asking for three times our current amount = South East Water will asking us to pay over £6000...just to have drinking water and flush the loo.... we can't and won't pay, it's a disgrace!!!

May 15, 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

The worst water provider ever allowed…

The worst water provider ever allowed to make profit out of poisoning the water supply, daily with toxins and chlorine and flouride that causes cancers and weak bones, when you get none of that in Manchester or Scotland. They pollute the waterways with sewage and the seas, I'm actually surprised they're allowed to even make money to be honest with you, they charge you more to poison you more, make you docile just like what happened in world war 2. I've tried to pay them and they're just allowing me to go onto debt, what a lovely company this is, their staff are incompetent and useless. Trying to ask universal credit to take money out of account is kind of a scam when they're doing it to gain more profit and better Christmas dinners, hide when they have them so they can party on and keep poisoning us. There should be a law against this, but it seems the government is ok with that, goes to show you that the government don't care about the people but themselves. They're all getting back handers. If the people rise up against these people they would have better drinking water and a wholesome life without their poisons. If loby can desalinate their water supply surely this country can but they know they want to cut corners and save money. This water company should be sued and not able to provide a liaison to people that drink it daily. They should also be locked up. Crimes against humanity should not carry on like this and their staff need to be trained better at making a resolution to help their customers. No way of switching to another water company. This is how they create problems for families. Don't fix burst pipes for months. It took over 6 months to fix a burst pipe near flats o live at. This company does know what they're doing and it's all about making money at the customers expense.

April 24, 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Terrible company - third world service.

Terrible company water supply was off for about 2 weeks I had to shower at work and fill up water bottles. At least we got compensation but it's absolutely ridiculous.
We get no choice who our water company is and so they don't have to give a hoot.
Cowardly CEO is still taking home the big bucks and getting his bonuses while ordinary people suffer with third world water supply.

David Hinton must resign immediately.

February 4, 2026
Unprompted review
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Rated 1 out of 5 stars

They do not answer the phone! Useless waste of my time.

I am the executor to my fathers estate, and funnily enough, my father is no longer using water! So we geta letter querying why no water is being used. Yet when I try to ring up and tell them why, they don't answer the phone. I loather and despise companys which are so disrespectful of the value of my time. There is a limit to how much of my time I am willing to waste on this. You might think they would have a form for such an obvious issue which presumably happens when occupants die? But no. I just have to sit endlessly waiting for them to answer. It is a pity I can't use rude words in this review because we the reason rude words exist is to convey huge frustration or as a response to disrespect by others. I note from their rating I am not the only one that they disrespect. I think 15 minutes of my time is more than enough to waste. Useless.

April 2, 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

I'm trying to reset my email address to…

I'm trying to reset my email address to a new one. SEW don't seem to want me to do this and just blopck any change i want to make. I've not been affected by the water outage over the last few months but their Customer Service is still off the scale and falling several thousand feet. I've requested emails but get nothing, just frozen out..

April 1, 2026
Unprompted review
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Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Can you rate a Zero for this useless…

Can you rate a Zero for this useless monopoly.?
Try as we might to even get an account for a new supply water of water we have yet again failed!
No one answers Emails or phones probably too busy mending leaks. No business could operate so incompetently if it lived in a real business environment.
If someone ever reads this be aware that as you clearly do not need us as a customer, we will will continue to use your water.

March 17, 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

I don't know where to start

I don't know where to start? In what world do we live in, when we're paying a company absolute extortionate fees,, to dump excrement, Raw f$[kng excrement into our rivers, seas and places of natural beauty?? Looking at my "Enhanced" bill this morning makes me want to kill myself!!! How are they allowed to carry on running this service? When its just price hike after incompetence, after price hike, after incompetence,,, they need dissolving, they are incapable of carrying out the tasks in hand , its just a jolly up for shareholders and absolute Rsoles
Disgusting shower of absolute Sht!!! Literally

February 19, 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Water leak on our property

We had a water leak on our property, which was not lack of maintenance or investment. It was just a 50 year old plastic pipe. South East Water informed us of the potential leak, investigated very quickly, and arranged for it to be fixed. They then wrote off a very large amount of the bill, using their leak allowance. Their staff were all very efficient, knowledgeable, and understanding. I couldn't fault them over this leak.

January 7, 2026
Unprompted review
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Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Over the past two months our household…

Over the past two months our household experienced two major water supply failures in Tunbridge Wells first in late November/December 2025 (including a prolonged boil water notice), and again in January 2026. During the January incident we had repeated loss of supply and extremely low pressure over multiple days. Toilets would not flush and taps were only dripping. Despite being registered on the Priority Services Register, bottled water deliveries were either delayed or not received at all. While the company issued general updates, communication about timelines frequently changed and we were told supply would return sooner than it actually did. Compensation has also been a point of dispute, as the company appears to compensate only for complete “no water” events, excluding prolonged periods of unusable low pressure. This has been particularly stressful for our household due to pregnancy and recent minor surgery at the time of the outages. What needs improvement:
Clearer, property-level communication rather than generic area-wide updates.
More reliable Priority Services deliveries.
Transparent compensation calculations.
Better resilience planning following the December incident to avoid a second failure in January Water is an essential service, and repeated outages in such a short period significantly impact daily life.

February 13, 2026
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Zero Stars

Zero action despite repeatedly reporting a leak outside our neighbours house. This leak has been going on since mid January. I have reported the incident on line twice now - they do respond with the 'Thank you for reporting blah, blah, blah', but that's it ......NO ACTION. I've also called but ended up hanging up after 40 minutes. My husband did get to speak to someone several weeks ago, but again the 'blah, blah, blah' NO ACTION. I'm fed up with neighbours knocking on my door asking if the leak had been reported as it's affecting the whole road. For goodness sake do something about these leaks, appauling service. NEWS FLASH !!!!! Well someone turned up, parked in my parking space without asking, sat in the van for around 30 mins and drove off - I suppose that counts as a call ?

January 14, 2026
Unprompted review

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