Threat to cut off water to holiday home

[dranfield]

i have a holiday home and the site owner is threatening to cut off the water unless we sign his new maintenance agreement,can he legally do this

[Androcles]

Do you own the holiday home or rent it? What is the relationship with the site owner - presumably you are tenants in either case, so there should be a written rental agreement which specifies what services you are entitled to receive, eg water and electricity? Check if he is in breach of that if he cuts of supply.

[dranfield]

I own the holiday home freehold.When the present site owner bought the site he bought everything except the holiday homes which are all owned freehold by other people,107 in total.The site owner does the maintenance for which there was a contract.When he bought the site he put the company which owns the contract into liquidation and formed his own maintenance company.He then almost doubled the amount payable.Because of this most people refused to sign the new contract,altho we all pay him for any utilities,i.e water and electric and fefuge.He has now stated that unless we sign the new contact he will stop our electric and water.

[buildersmate]

I remember a very similar question on here about electricity.
The problem is the same - that your water supply is almost certainly through the site owner - in other words, you don't have a way of contracting directly with the water utility because it has to run through pipes owned by the site owner.
So unless the contract by which your van sits on this site entitles you to water at a defined price, your site owner can do what he likes.
The odes are not good - it sounds like the new owner has spotted a money-raising opportunity and your contractual position is probably weak.

[Eve]

Check the terms of the basis of his rights to do what he does and see if there is any room for challenge such as reasonableness.