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Student House landlord problems
unluckypaul
Posts: 6 Forumite
Not too sure where this falls in the forums but I'm stuck in quite a confusing situation at the moment. My current student flat is above a shop with the same heating and electricity supply on the same meter. This was meant to be corrected months ago and we have been receiving bills intended for businesses. We refused to pay these and gave them to the landlord as we would be paying business level tax and I guess it would count as tax evasion. So the landlord has charged us an arbitary 65% of the bill which is huge and the shop gets the bill paid as part of their rent deal. This seems extremely unfair, the shop makes us keep the heating on all the time and runs shop lighting all night, how the electricity usage can be tracked to us at exactly 65% i do not know! Is it even legal to have a business and residence run off the same meter? Can the landlord just charge an arbitary figure like this? All bills are still going through as business bills to the landlord who is asking us to pay the extortionate prices. We can only hope the meter is fitted soon.
Do we have any kind of legal leg to stand on in arguing to pay less of the bill? Is it even allowed without the landlord being able to resell gas/electricity? Is he not in effect brokering electricity/gas?
n.b. the bills are not in our name at all, they are in the landlords name.
Do we have any kind of legal leg to stand on in arguing to pay less of the bill? Is it even allowed without the landlord being able to resell gas/electricity? Is he not in effect brokering electricity/gas?
n.b. the bills are not in our name at all, they are in the landlords name.
0
Comments
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Check exactly what it says about payment of utility bills in your tenancy agreement.
See here for guidance on gas/elec reselling. If you get nowhere with the LL talk to the Tenancy Relations Officer on the local Council's private sector rentals team - s/he can liaise with the LL if necessary.
Your Uni accomms/welfare office should also be able to help you with this one.
Do you have a gas safety certificate for this property and has your tenancy deposit been scheme-registered btw?0
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