This is a question to the blog clinic from Henike who may one day be a tenant in England:
I am thinking about going to Great Britain for some years to work. Now I am seeking advice in questions concerning energy costs.
If there is a central heating station in the house providing heat and warm water the first question is: who is responsible for the the calculation of heating costs and their allocation to the tenants? And how much can be charged for this billing service?
The second question is: what is the legal base for calculation, I mean is there any heating costs ordinance like we have it in Germany? I searched the internet, but I could not find any provision or regulation on that topic.
The reason for asking these details is, that I made some bad experiences when I was renting an apartment from a private landlord owning a multi-storey house in France.
This blog is just about the law in England and Wales so if you go to Scotland or Northern Ireland I can’t help (although some readers may be able to). I assume that you are asking about rooms in shared houses.
How the energy bills are calculated really depends on the type of rental and how the landlord deals with it. There is no one way.
- Some landlords make it all inclusive – so your rent covers your energy costs.
- Others will divide up the bills when they come in and ask the tenants to pay their share
- Others may charge a fixed amount regardless of how much you use
- Criminal landlords may charge huge sums of money for an electricity supply which is obtained illegally (Ben who writes on this blog on a Friday could tell you a tale or two there …)
If you are a landlord of an HMO, what do you do?
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If YOU have a problem, why not put it to the blog clinic? However there are a lot of questions submitted, so if you need an answer quickly remember that members of my Landlord Law service can ask me questions in the members forum area, and will normally get an answer with 24 hours.
Arguments over heating costs in HMOs (Multiple shared houses Henike)are one of the biggest sources of problems.
And it comes in 2 ways. Firstly there is the disastrous practice of leaving a gas card and electricity key for the tenants to argue over or lose. The landlords usually thinking it isnt their problem when this happens but the dischord it creates usually affects them somewhere.
Secondly landlords charging tenants a flat rate, say £10 a week and then arguing with the tenants that they should pay more because the bills are higher as a result of the tenants leaving the heating on all day.
For some time there have been smart meters on the market, small digital affairs that can meter individual rooms so each tenant pays their own bill. There even companies who will fit them for free and yet landlords dont take adavantge of a service that would take all the arguments out of the equation
Thanks for the reply. According to your answer, I assume the majority of flats to rent are equipped with an own pre-paid gas meter with a card, right? That would be fine, I had to use such a system in China for water, electricity and gas and it was very easy to handle. Or is this system hard to find?
Also interesting to hear about the smart meter thingy. I have never seen such a thing before. Are they save? I mean can someone manipulate the consumption values?
there is no heating costs ordnance, but like Germany (we are both in the EU!) tenants do have the right to see an Energy Performance Certificate for the home they are considering renting. For rentals where heating costs are included in the rent, this may seem unimportant, but the average heating costs shown on the EPC would give a steer towards whether the included heating costs are fair or not.
Unlike Germany, where the law is rigidly followed, unfortunately most English tenants are not shown the ECP before they move in – a great shame. Tenants should ask to see it, they are entitled to, and if the tenant is to pay the fuel bills they need to know whether they can afford them. Landlords would benefit too, since if the tenant can’t afford the fuel bills, will they be able to afford the rent?
@Henike I don’t think you can assume anything. You need to make careful enquiries for the properties you look at as they may not all be the same.
@Tessa: I am just trying to find a pragmatic way for searching a flat :-) With no regulation in the back and no certainities about the “general” way how landlords handle this topic it is hard to seperate “convenient” offers from offers that might lead to problems.
But I am glad to hear that there are pragmatic metering systems! :-)
Henicke, the majority of flats to rent are not equipped with a pre-paid gas meter with a card. Some are, but many come with a meter that requires you to pay by account, usually monthly or quarterly.
A smart meter is a very useful way of managing your spending on heating, since you can see every day how much you have spent. No, they don’t manipulate the consumption values, they just read what the meter has recorded and display it on a small screen that plugs into a socket inside the house.
Without a smart meter, if you don’t look carefully at your meter reading, you can get a nasty surprise when you receive your quarterly bill, and find out just how much you owe for the fuel you have used.
I hope you find a good place to rent. One of my tenants was German and she was a very good tenant indeed.
There is a booklet you can download from http://www.energywatch.org.uk produced by Ofgem entitled ‘The resale of gas and electricity – guidance for resellers’ (ie:private landlords). It’s excellent. I’ve sent out many of these to private renting tenants over the years and they’ve tied their landlords up in knots with what they learn from it. It’s got to be worth a look.
Chris F
We don’t have “heating costs ordinance” as the design of heating systems in the UK is very different from what a lot of blocks of flats in Germany have.
In the UK most flats (well over 95%) have their own self contained heating system, most often a gas boiler. Each flat will have its own gas and electivity meters with the tenant paying the energy providers directly. (I not going to try to explain how there can be different companies you can buy the same gas/electivity from var the same pipes/cables).
So in the UK if you rent a flat it is very unlikely that the landlord will be charging you for heat.
I expect that in Germany it is normal to have shared heating system for a block of flats with the heating system being controlled by the landlord and each flat being charged for the heat it used, assuming that an area wide District heating system is not in use.
The only time it is normal for a landlord to provide a shared heating system is when you are renting a single room in the shared house, sometimes call a HMO.
When we talk about Central Heating in the UK, we mean a boiler in each flat, normally in the kitchen, powering radiators in each room, rather than a gas fire in each room.
It is so uncommon to have a shared boiler for all flats in a block that I can even think of the name we use for that setup!
@ Ian: I was definitely on a wrong track, because in Germany “central heating” means a central heating station providing warm water and heat for many flats. So when I read about central heating in an English house, I indeed thought of this German system!
What I learned so far is, that I can pay directly to the supplier which seems ok for me. Just one last question: is it a monthly “anticipated payment” and at the end of the year, I get money back or pay the rest if I used more? Or is it a “real” monthly bill? That would be even better, but in Germany we have to pay extra for a monthly billing service (also for electricity, by the way).
Henike, it is a monthly anticipated payment, unless you have a smart meter. The anticipated payment is based on the previous tenants fuel bills and may be too low for you.
This is why it’s possibile that you will have to pay a lot more at the end of the year, unless you keep track of your meter readings yourself and let them know.
The heating station for many flats is called community heating or district heating in England, and it is not common, but is found in some newer developments.
Thank you all very much for your answers, it gave me a very good idea which points I should take care of.
Henike – having just seen your posting and all the responses you have received, my main thought was your main concern should be to find a good landlord particularly if you are to be in London, so be careful in your choice and ensure all your questions are answered before you decide to rent. That way you will not receive any suprises when it comes to bills, extra charges on top of rent etc. You are already thinking ahead of time which is a good sign! My husband has rented in both Germany and France so we can understand the confusion in trying to research the UK rental market, it is different in each and every country. Good luck and I am certain if you have discovered this website you will do well!