Please Help - Landlords & Prepayment Meters

donnydude

Hopefully someone can help me out here.

Currently I am living in a stufio flat in a large building along with 12 other rooms. I have been here for nearly a year now and my electricity "bill" is increasing rapidly. My flat has a prepayment electricity meter which takes £5 cards bought from my landlord. The meter did originally"charge" in 20p denominations meaning it dropped 20p per however much electricity was used. Recently the meter has been changed to drop in 30p denominations. (I was not made aware of this nor was I asked permission to enter my flat to change the meter charges).
Currently it is costing me aproximately £2 per day for electricity useage. The only appliances I am using are a desktop PC, LCD TV, powered speakers and a table lamp. It seems very expensive compared to my partners 3 bed semi house which costs less on a prepayment meter!
Is there any way that I can check to see whether I am being ripped off by my landlord? Is there any legislation to say that landlords cannot profit via electricity meters?

Many thanks for taking the time to read this. Hopefully somebody will be able to advise me.
Paul

Pink_fluff

You don't have a washing machine, fridge, cooker, microwave etc etc... You catch my drift. What sort of heating do you have?

Is there some kind of agreement in place that you *must* buy the tokens from the landlord?

donnydude

Pink_fluff wrote: »

You don't have a washing machine, fridge, cooker, microwave etc etc... You catch my drift. What sort of heating do you have?

Is there some kind of agreement in place that you *must* buy the tokens from the landlord?

No we have a seperate laundry room and shared kitchen so what I listed are the only elctric items I use. And occasionally charging my mobile that's it.

Yes I have to buy the cards from my landlord as they are specific cards to use in the private electric meters. ie not supplied by an energy supplier. I hope you understand what I mean.

ex-energywatch_adviser

See http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Consumers/Do...1/1970-mrp.pdf for info regarding resale of energy. Basically a landlord cannot profit from reselling energy to you.

donnydude

ex-energywatch_adviser wrote: »

See http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Consumers/Do...1/1970-mrp.pdf for info regarding resale of energy. Basically a landlord cannot profit from reselling energy to you.

Thankyou for that. I have just read through the whole document. So basically I am being charged 30p per unit. If my landlord pays less than 30p per unit from NPower he is making a profir from my electric.
Is a unit a standard figure of electric ie a certain amount of kw or is a unit decided by the reseller?
I guess I need to find out how much my landlord pays per unit to his supplier as I am legally entitled to view it.

I really appreciate your help.

Thankyou

Fire_Fox

Are there any buttons on your meter which change the screen? Post up here exactly what they say if so, as someone will be able to make sense of it. Also the 20p to 30p change may have been activated via the card itself, doesn't necessarily mean your room was entered.

Also read through your tenancy agreement, then if needs be politely write to your landlord saying you are struggling to budget for your energy and could he please explain the pricing system. How do you know it's NPower?

You also haven't answered the heating question, do you pay for your heating via this card system?

donnydude

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Are there any buttons on your meter which change the screen? Post up here exactly what they say if so, as someone will be able to make sense of it. Also the 20p to 30p change may have been activated via the card itself, doesn't necessarily mean your room was entered.

Also read through your tenancy agreement, then if needs be politely write to your landlord saying you are struggling to budget for your energy and could he please explain the pricing system. How do you know it's NPower?

You also haven't answered the heating question, do you pay for your heating via this card system?

Yes there are buttons which change the screen but they only display the cost per unitand the number of cards used and total amount.

I mentioned it to my landlord before when it was costing a lot at 20p per unit. His reply was that his electric bill had increased and everybody elses should too. He rold me his electric is with NPower. I will be asking him to explain his pricing system to me anyway.

My electric has nothing to do with the heating here. That is controlled by the landlord and is included in the rent.