Use Otter as an independent information service.

About the service

Otter is operated by RAT SYSTEMS. It combines official restriction notices, published water-level readings, maps and separately tested forecasts. It is not a water company, regulator, emergency service or legal authority.

Official notices come first

Always follow the current notice and postcode checker published by your water supplier. An Otter model, map, preview or warning cannot create, change or remove a legal restriction. Where Otter and an official notice differ, the official notice controls.

Forecast limitations

Water-level forecasts are guides, not promises, emergency advice or percentage chances of a hosepipe ban. Coverage varies by area and some readings represent only one part of a larger water system. If a forecast fails its checks or its data is out of date, Otter hides it instead of filling the gap with an estimate.

Availability

Public sources and supplier services can be delayed, revised or unavailable. Otter may preserve the last verified official fact, mark the service degraded or withhold an outlook while a source is checked. Reasonable efforts are made to keep the service available, but uninterrupted operation is not guaranteed.

Data and intellectual property

Source publishers retain their rights in the underlying data and documents. Otter uses attributed factual observations and direct source links; it does not republish source prose, charts, images or raw pages. Sources whose terms do not permit the required automated or paid use are removed from the service. Otter's code, design, explanations and derived presentation remain subject to their own rights. Do not remove attribution or present an Otter preview as an official supplier publication.

Accounts

Paid monitoring and account management require a verified sign-in link sent to your email address. You are responsible for protecting access to that mailbox and for telling Otter promptly if you believe your account has been accessed without permission. Account access does not replace the separate email verification used for forecast delivery.

Free and paid plans

The public website may be used without payment. When paid plans are enabled, Otter Plus costs £2.99 each month or £19.99 each year. The total price and billing interval are shown again before payment. Subscriptions renew automatically on the same interval until cancelled. Otter does not offer a free trial unless Checkout says so expressly.

Paid features include forecast and official-restriction service emails for eligible saved locations. Coverage and forecast availability still vary by area; paying does not turn a withheld or unavailable forecast into an estimate.

Payment, renewal and cancellation

Stripe processes payment details and provides invoices. Otter does not receive full card details. You can update a payment method, change plan or cancel through the Stripe-hosted billing portal linked from the pricing and account pages. Cancellation stops future renewals and paid access normally continues until the end of the period already paid for.

If a renewal payment fails, Stripe may retry it and Otter may suspend paid delivery until payment is restored. Cancelling forecast emails does not itself cancel billing; use the billing portal to stop the subscription.

Cooling-off and refunds

As an Otter policy, a consumer may request a full refund within 14 days of an initial purchase or an annual renewal. After that period, payments are normally non-refundable except where the law requires a refund or the service was materially not supplied. Contact otter@ratsystems.uk with the account email and purchase date. This policy does not limit statutory rights.

Service emails

Verification, billing, security, official restriction and requested forecast messages are service communications. Alert preferences can be stopped using the link in an email. Marketing is separate and is not sent without an applicable permission or legal basis.

Contact and changes

Material changes will be dated on this page. Questions can be sent through the contact route. Nothing in these terms excludes rights or responsibilities that cannot legally be excluded.