What to do if hot water and cold water are turned off for non-payment?

Despite the proliferation of legal services and the availability of regulatory documents, most people remain ignorant of basic things. For example, only a few know what to do if they turn off hot water and cold water. But if you understand which organizations to contact with the necessary questions, you can either quickly clarify the situation or achieve restoration of the service.

Situations are different, but you don’t have to suffer because neighbors don’t pay the bills, someone made an emergency and don’t do anything about it, someone in the house creates uncomfortable conditions due to repairs.

Why can they turn off the water in the apartment?

Before you think what to do if you turned off the water, you need to find out why this happened at all. In practice, such situations may be due to an impressive list of reasons:

• In case of emergencies or the impact of natural disasters. Only in this case, specialized services have the right to shut off water without prior notice to residents of the house or specific apartments.
• If necessary, carry out scheduled work. If the shutdown is planned for several hours, then at least a day is warned about this. If for a longer period, then in a few days. In any case, hot and cold water do not turn off at the same time.

Tip: Some people think that if you don’t pay for the water, nobody will turn it off - you just need to keep the workers home. Indeed, otherwise, due to the fact that all pipes are interconnected, at the same time with the deadbeat all the neighbors in the riser will have to suffer. In fact, today the pipe sealing system is debugged in such a way that these nuances no longer work.

• When identifying cases of independent connection of one of the residents of the house to engineering systems. If there is a requirement to disconnect the house from an authorized organization.
• Water can be turned off when residents of a particular apartment use appliances that exceed the capacity of acceptable household analogues. All characteristics are indicated in the passports that are attached to the living room and operating devices.

• It is worth considering that it is precisely the residents of the apartments that are responsible for the quality of the pipes in the living room today. If these installations are in unsatisfactory condition, the relevant services have the right to turn off the water before replacing the pipes. The decision is made by the appropriate commission, and the tenants of the apartment must be informed.
• Finally, water may be blocked due to non-payment. But here there are several nuances that you need to know about. Firstly, the debt on all payments, or at least one of them, should be at least 6 months. Secondly, if the tenant signs an agreement with the management company on the gradual repayment of the debt and the strict implementation of this schedule, no one can turn off the water, whatever the size and duration of the debt. Thirdly, only hot water can be turned off, the management company does not have the right to leave the inhabitants of the dwelling without hot water.

To find out why there is no water in the apartment, you need to contact the management company attached to a particular house. If its employees claim that they do not know what the matter is, or refuse to answer the questions posed, you can safely write a complaint to them to the district administration, and apply to the police and prosecutors. Practice shows that such measures allow you to quickly understand the situation, and at least get answers to all questions.

What to do if the water is turned off for no apparent reason?

It happens that the water in one apartment is turned off due to late payments by the owners of another apartment. This is absolutely illegal! Sometimes management companies try in this way to force the residents of the house to “convince” the non-payer of the need to pay off his debt. People simply do not know their rights - even an oral appeal to the employees of the management company should quickly settle everything. Otherwise, the situation is normalized by the police.

There is one more point worth paying attention to. If there was no warning announcement, and the water (any) was turned off, perhaps this was done by the neighbors themselves. For example, they make repairs and change pipes. Without prior coordination of time and deadlines with neighbors in the riser, this is again illegal. In this case, you can either directly demand from the tenants of such an apartment to restore everything, or contact the local. Regular violation of the established rules is fraught even with eviction from the apartment, so no problems should arise.

By the way, if you were not lucky enough to live in the same house with malicious defaulters, you should carefully check your utility bills. Some management companies, so as not to be tormented by knocking out debts, simply distribute them among all the residents of the house. Such behavior is the basis for writing a statement to the police and going to court.