Our Guaranteed Standards Scheme (GSS)

When an appointment is made, we must offer you a morning or afternoon appointment. We must also inform you of the times we consider to be morning or afternoon. If requested, we’ll offer a specified two-hour time slot. If we fail to do this, you are entitled to £40.

We must visit in the morning or afternoon as notified, or within the requested two-hour time slot. Where we have to cancel an appointment, we’ll provide 24 hours’ notice. If we fail to do this, we’ll pay you £50. If we fail to attend, we’ll pay you £50.

If you contact us to query the accuracy of your bill or account details, we aim to send a reply within 10 working days. If we take longer, we’ll pay you £40.

If you contact us to change how you pay your bill, we’ll make the change as quickly as possible. If we don’t update you within five working days, we’ll pay you £40

If we’re planning to turn off your water supply to carry out works on our network, we’ll give you at least 48 hours' notice. If we fail to notify you of a planned interruption lasting more than four hours, we’ll pay you £50.

If we fail to turn your water back on by the time specified in our notice, we’ll pay you £50 and a further £50 for each subsequent 12-hour period you have no water.

For unplanned interruptions (e.g. burst water main), we’ll notify you as soon as practicable when we expect to restore the supply. If we fail to restore your supply within 12 hours, we’ll pay you £50 and a further £50 for each subsequent 12-hour period, up to twice the annual water supply charge.

GSS payments for appointments, complaints, billing, and changes to payment arrangements should be made within 10 working days of it becoming payable. If we don’t do this, we’ll pay you a late payment penalty of £40.

GSS payments for interruptions should be made within 20 working days of it becoming payable. If we don’t do this, we’ll pay you a late payment penalty of £50. Subsequent payments will be made up to a maximum amount of the value of twice the annual water supply charge.

If the water pressure in our pipework falls below seven metres static head in the communication pipe supplying your property on two occasions (each one lasting an hour or more) within any 28-day period, we’ll pay you £50.

You can receive up to five payments (max £250) in any financial year. This does not apply if low pressure is caused by necessary works or drought.

A water meter used for charging must be read at least once within a 13-month period. If we fail to apply an actual meter reading to your account within 13 months, you’re entitled to £40. If we continue to fail to apply each subsequent meter reading within 13 months, you’re entitled to £80 for each missed reading.

Please note: there are some exemptions such as health and safety reasons, no access given for internal meters, temporarily covered or the area is overgrown.

When a water meter is requested to be installed by a customer, we need to install one and change the tariff to metered charges within 8 weeks / 56 days. If we fail to do this, you’ll receive free clean water until we complete both the installation and change your account to metered charges.

Please note: this doesn’t apply to any wastewater charges from Thames Water or Anglian Water.

When you join our Priority Services Register with a core service (delivery of alternative water during a water supply interruption, alternative format communications or nominating a third party to manage your account), we’ll send you a confirmation of this. If we fail to confirm your registration within 30 days, you’re entitled to a payment of £100.

If you’re registered on our Priority Services Register with a core service and we fail to provide the promised help we stated, you’re entitled to a payment of £100.

Where you’ve followed our complaints procedure, we’ll send you our reply within 10 working days of receiving your complaint. If we take longer than this to send our reply, we’ll pay you £40. To view our complaints process, please visit affinitywater.co.uk/complaints