Bulk LPG - Cheapest suppliers / supply route?

routly wrote: »

All you may be interested I negotiated an umbrella contract with flogas for our 37 houses , that puts all under one contract , this means we cannot be held by those who sign new individual contracts as people move , this gives us the ability to move suppliers if required . Flogas have been very good and agreed to fix prices in 6 month blocks based on market price ,
You may be interested we secured a fixed price of 44ppl from jan 13 to June 13 , and now 41.5ppl for July 13 to jan 14 . If all those on an estate get together and all agree to work as one voice you I am sure can make the same happen .

Hi,
I managed to negotiate a price last year with Calor Gas for our metered estate in Perthshire, Scotland. We are a new development which, due to the ongoing building, meant that we would never be free of the 2 year sign-in when registering with Calor. As the estate is now 6 years old we are seeing houses being sold and new neighbours coming in which in turn locks us in to a further 2 years without the ability to change supplier. For those that dont know, as a householder in a metered estate we share a number of bulk tanks with LPG being piped through the estate to individual houses. The down side is that we are all tied in to the supplier unless every single household is out of this 2 year contract.The final house in our 54 house estate was moved in to last year and after a near on 2 year fight with Calor, I finally got them to come to the table and get an agreement to over-ride the standard contract they use. the gist of it being:
- we would have a fixed price of 43.9ppl (plus VAT) from Aug 2012 to end of Sept 2013 - the price was due to be increased to 54.5ppl at the time of the agreement;
- Standing charge is fixed at £52 per year (plus VAT)
- we would then have a price review with a max increase of 3.5ppl in any six months;
- the entire estate would be free to move in Aug 2014, with any new householders subject only to that final date.

We are approaching the time of review and I expect to hear from our rep over the next couple of weeks, but I'm interested to know what people think I should be batting for please? HAs anybody any experience in current metered estate pricing, or even maybe fixing a tank price over the last few months? Having a look around the web, I can see that prices have been on move up recently, but we are only now back at the level which we were at when we had our sit down and our prices were fixed last year. Would it be realistic to press for a slight decrease based on 7 months of wholesale price drops out of 12, or should I be looking to try and keep the prices at the level they are at now with the aim to fix them til end of Aug 2014 when we are due to review the estate supplier?

Thanks for any guidance and insight you can offer.

If you each have your own tank, then you have a right too switch suppliers as the end user, the park owner may not like it, but I would check with Competition Commission who "manage" the process of switching domestic LPG tanks, I believe as long as you approach other suppliers then its ok to do so.

Also 70 pence per litre is a very high price, so act now ready for the winter because it takes a month to switch suppliers.

Parkyglo63 wrote: »

There are 72 homes on this site and each of us has our own tank. These are usually filled up once a month and the owner fills them up whether you want a top up or not! In the new act it also states that the park owners must be transparent with all documentation dealing with the prices of gas and electricity however LPG gas is not regulated by Ofgem so can be a problem. We have got to prove that the park owner is adding costs to our bill and the only way to do this is to see the bill from the supplier. I have now found out that the supplier is Flogas and after calling them pretending to be a new householder with a tank in the garden, I asked them how much they would charge me per litre and they said 46p (not sure if with 5% VAT or not. But with all this ammunition what to do next. Will it be a small claims court case or via Trading Standards. Also some residents are asking if he is found to be overcharging us, can we claim refunds? I will have to wait to see when I get a response to my initial letter asking to see documents before I go further into this. Our MP is coming to see us on the park again soon to talk about the new act and although he will not want to answer questions about the gas price charges, it may put him on the spot as the park owners will there too.

The act is called The Mobile Homes Act 1983 which has just been amended to include the changes in the law dealing with buying and selling and gifting your home. In the past many unscrupulous owners would block sales etc so now you must sell and buy through estate agents only and only need to tell the park owners 28 days before the selling date. You still have to give the park owner 10% of the sale price but this is done by your buyer - 90% to the seller and 10% to the park owner. The downside to this will be that park owners are meant to vet potential buyers but cannot do this now.

Thanks for reading my rant. It does help to get your opinions as I can show this to the older residents who are in fuel poverty and scared to do anything about it.

Any lawyers out there who can help with advice.

Thanks