Southern Water Reviews 

Appalling lying, cheating, and corrupt and disingenuous from the CEO down.

Southern Water are over priced company that charge extortionate prices for the water.
What to put cost of water from £25 per month to £93 per month for a one bedroom flat and I do not use a lot of water.
These utilitie companies are getting to much profit and making the poorer even more poorer.

This company has genuinely been absolutely diabolical. Given I take some blame, I was a university student who was moving into a new house for the first time with my friends who was told to register with this company even though we have bills package set up with my house. Every time I have tried to tell them or close the account their either pushed my outstanding bill back and repetitively sent me emails. I had to invoke Unihomes into this matter as there was no use getting through to them. Unihomes has claimed to follow up with them, even labelling my issue as an emergency and yet Southern Waters has claimed there has been nothing of it. This company has brought so much dread onto me considering I have university and can barely keep up with my bills at this point. No one is reliable in that company and they constantly dismiss your claims and complaints like it is mud on their shoes.

They keep increasing our DD by 50% even though our current usage (which has been the same for around a year now) indicates it should not be increasing. I have spoken to MULTIPLE agents who do not understand this. They explain the increase by saying our usage has increased (by 1p a day so that makes no sense) and the cost of water went up last April. And yet after I did a recent meter reading, it showed we only owed £15 since April, so we are clearly paying roughly the right amount. I have had to do multiple meter readings and have had many frustrating conversations. I eventually spoke to someone who finally understood what I was saying. Don't bother talking to agents over chat, they are even worse, completely clueless.

They stopped using the DD I have with them in December for no reason whatsoever and without telling me. My bank tell me it was in place and they is no reason their end why this happened. The money was available in the account - I have never failed to pay a DD in my life. Had a 40 minute phone call to a male staff member there who put me on hold about 10 times during the call which was pretty worrying. I paid the outstanding balance and set up a new DD. This resulted in 2 total garbage computer generated letters. I called my bank again to cancel the old DD. So today I thought I should call them to check everything was ok and tell them to stop the letters and ensure everything was set for the new February DD as of course I have no reason to trust them. Surprise surprise! They have no record of the new DD on my account whatsoever. Words cannot express how much I absolutely hate this company. At a time when they have practically doubled the price of my water their service and accounts have gone completely into disarray. How much longer do we have to suffer this failing organisation? Perhaps they should spend some of this extra money they are raking in on staff training instead of yet more undeserved bonuses?

Came in less than 24 hours to unblock the drains outside. Did the job foc, and the guy was very friendly and informative.

I have been paying £35 a month for water with Southern Water for the last year. A few days ago they claim I will have to pay £85 a month to cover my usage. Firstly, they have not even done a meter reading or sent me any kind of proof/bill to justify more than doubling my monthly costs. I have tried to contact them to sort it out, but nothing. How can you justify charging more than double without even looking at someones usage? I've now paid of the previous bill in full and cancelled the direct debit, unacceptable behaviour really.

Since May 2025 my direct debit has increased 3 times, now double what it was, apparently to enable them to put in place the improvements customers have said is important to them. I have not had a meter reading since last May, impossible to submit a meter reading. This company are impossible to deal with and need to be taken to task by OFWAT and the government. Would have given 0 stars if I could.

Yet another bill increase to pay for greed bonus payments and failure

I have just discovered my bill has shot up by 47% in one hit.
Judging by the number of poor reviews my guess is that they don`t care about customer feedback and that they feel they can just do what they want as a monopoly with no consequences for their actions.
They consistantly pay out a fortune in dividends yet cost of re-investment is paid directly by the customer.
Along with this rant I am going to goint to go howl at the moon again tonight for all the control we have, roll on the revolution

Today our household joined the many thousands of other households in Kent to have no water.

Six months ago my water bill doubled from £40 to £80 per month despite using the same amount. It is perplexing how SW can justify a 100% increase. I wonder where their profits are going?

Well, according to reports, Lawrence Gosden, SW CEO received a total pay package of approximately £1.4 million for the last financial year (to March 31, 2025).
Not a bad reward for a CEO heading an utterly incompetent company. The government need to step in and take our water supplies back into public ownership.

I live in a small one bed flat with no garden and SW are saying we are using the same amount as a family of 5 with a garden. We’ve done water diaries, checked for leaks, checked with neighbours on usage and bills and everyone including SW agree it’s the meter. They have been telling me someone will contact me since March 2024. They even lied and said they sent someone round to look at meter. They didn’t and then admitted as much. Absolutely cruel how they treat customers.
They never call when they promise and the amount of anxiety they’ve caused is incredible.

Three years ago I moved into the property I am now writing this from. Last month I received a statement asking me for sewage usage for the last three years. Despite two phone calls, and an e-mail asking for invoices that this demand relates to, all I have received is another demand. It is less than impressive that as a customer I have to chase a supplier with a defective billing system and seems to be more concerned about sending threating letters referring to possible negative implications to my credit status. Come on Southern it is time to get your act together and I expect an apology and a retraction of the inappropriate and unwelcome communication I received today

More than doubled my payments, and then called to say they wanted more money from me after moving house. I asked them to transfer the debt to the new account and I will monitor it and adjust my payments again if needed but they insisted on increasing payments higher, which would have been triple. After our disagreement they put me on hold for 15 minutes before I hung up as I got the feeling they'd walked away from their phone. This is all so they can continue to pay out huge bonuses and cover their fines. Disgusting industry.

Evil company dumping sewage into the sea. Giving bonuses to the millionaires at the top of the company whilst hiking up the prices. Demanding I pay for 6 months of water upfront.

Modern day piracy

One of the worst and unexpected delay service. I live in Shirley SO15 AS I don't have another option to go with other company otherwise I don't stay and continue with southern water 🙏
Just to get my bill copy and they took 20 days still its not delivered

After moving to new flat one year ago they say there is outstanding balance of 200 pounds i done fiew testing turn out the meter is faulty I call them they sent technician he said meter need to be replaced it's going to take couples of weeks i got confirmation from them via email after waiting fiew weeks manger call me apologise she said the outstanding balance will be amended now I receive emails from them saying there is nothing wrong with the meter u need to pay the outstanding balance my bills doubled

Hosepipe bans huge increases in bills and outrageous demands mid term to increase monthly payments on set bills for future investment? no thanks if I could go elsewhere I certainly would

Southern Water have billed us almost £3000 for an address we never resided at, despite us providing evidence that we were at another similar address at the time. As a result, we have had bailiffs at our door, just before Christmas, threatening to take our furniture away in front of our 4 year old daughter. When calling Southern water they said they were unable to help and fobbed us off with an email address they refuse to reply to.

Southern Water have just completed a water meter upgrade. The engineer arrived came a did what he was advised. However, on completion I get a card through the door saying the 'meter has been successfully upgraded' and he filled in Open meter reading '0'. Well you incompetent management clowns at SW, how about telling me what the meter reading was of the one you took out? You didnt, and therefore you could charge me what you like and I dont have the information to dispute'! Also,on the card there is a section that says 'Note from the engineer:' and you printed his response!?! Jokers!

When will Government take this company back into public ownership?