Inclusive Bills Dispute - URGENT Help needed:(

Elle_Belle

Hello there!
I am completely new to this so apologies if I've posted in the wrong place or if there is an existing thread on something similar but have been trawling looking for anything in an existing thread but couldnt find anything so thought best to post.

Baisically I share a house with another student and two proffessionals. We rent the house from a private landlord who up until we had a great relationship with (she is the mother of a friend).

We have a clause in our contract which states that bills are inclusive in our rent as long as we stay below the allowance of £35 per person per 4 weeks (so £140 every four weeks). This agreement was set up as the previous tennants ran up extortionately high utility bills and we were well aware of it at the time (May 08). The landlord is claiming that we have exceeded this allowance, and is expacting us to pay over £350 in excess of our rent. She has sent us all the figures from the service providers and I am confident that she is not 'making these up'.

However we have several gripes with this (not least the fact that none of us have any money as the rent is already very high);

1. The immersion heater had been on since before we moved into the house and its thermostat was set to the maximum level. We were only made aware that the immersion heater was active and switched on when a British Gas engineer visited to fix the faulty ‘combi’ boiler in early May.
To better explain; as we were unaware that the water was being heated electrically we relied on the boiler, using our gas allowance, to heat water. An example of this would be; if three of us were to have a shower in the morning and the fourth wanted a bath, before the afternoon timer turned on the boiler, to provide more hot water we would use the boiler’s ‘hot water advance’ setting. Therefore, as we had no knowledge of the immersion heater we could not have prevented any costs associated with it. The above example also highlights that even though the immersion heater was on, we did not receive any benefit from this, as our use of the gas boiler did not decrease to reflect this.

2.The effect on the billing due to faulty radiators in the house. There have been several issues with the radiators that heat the house, these problems became apparent around November 08 and in some part remain unresolved. Several visits from plumbers were made to restore the function of the radiators, however it was some time before the top floor front radiator was fixed and the ground floor bedroom radiators are still faulty at present. During one HMs occupation of this ground floor bedroom it became necessary to increase the usage of the gas boiler as the only heat available to her room came from the radiator in the hall outside it. The faulty radiators in this room were even more problematic due to the loss of heat through the unblocked chimney and the single glazed windows as well as through the two external walls. We made the LL aware of this fault, the plumbers analysis of the cause; that there was ‘sludge’ in the radiators and the potential it had to become a stress on our bills but the problem was never fixed. Subsequently the HM from the ground floor moved to a middle floor room in February and this resolved the problem to a certain extent but was not an ideal resolution.

3. Every engineer/plumber that has had to visit the house has talked to us about the rising fuel prices, do we have a leg to stand on regarding the fact that we signed contracts when £35 per month was a reasonable allowance, but now we'd question signing the same contract after the fuel rises? Do landlords increase their allowance with fuel costs or are we just expacted to use less?

4. Possibly most complicatedly; originally there would have been 5 of us living in the house, the landlords daughter being the 5th. She did not return to live here due to illness but when we signed the contracts we believed that she would be moving in shortly. I have lived here for two years (two separate tennancy agreements now) and she was never asked to sign either of them, which didn't seem a problem at the time (hindsight is a wonderful thing), however she is still registered as living here with the council (her parents pay her council tax here etc.) and if we were to include £35 per week for her allowance for the utilities we would not be over in our bills. I know the landlord's arguement will be that she hasn't lived here therefore hasnt contributed to bills but she would have been factored in to our original billshare budgeting if that makes sense? Bit like the classic situation when a student starts living with their partner and expects their HMs to foot her share of the bills as she isn't staying there anymore, leaving everyone well above budget.

*gasp* apologies for the MASSIVELY long post but we don't really know what to do regarding this and we move out this Saturday so need to have some idea of what to do before then as I assume that is when she will expect the money. As I said we did have a good relationship with this landlord, and have done an awful lot to help here with the house, finding new tennants when old ones moved out etc etc. and I am desperate to sort this out civilly but don't know where we stand

Any advice would be _SO_ appreciated,
Thanks

Pee

Speak to the Landlord. I think the increase in energy prices is a tenants problem, not a landlords, just as an increase in interest rates is a landlord's problem not the tenants. The arguments you have is her failure to maintain the heating system - although surely the setting on the combi boiler is up to you - and the fact that five people are meant to be living there.

I'm assuming that you don't want to fall out with her and want to carry on living in the property, so sugest you approach her about this and see what happens. I don't know if it is ossible to involve the friend - is she still ill and any chance that she may move in?

Jowo_2

I have a landlord bias, just to let you know where I am coming from, and the following are general points rather than aimed necessarily at your specific points.

It is the responsibility of tenants to perform quite basic conventional duties, such as setting timers, being responsible for managing bills and budgets (including energy consumption) and understanding the operating manuals for appliances that are left or finding out how to operate the heating and water system by asking.

The following is more specific to your queries:

If you have a binding contract to pay x sum over an energy cap, then you have an obligation to pay this. There is no harm having the contract reviewed to check that its valid and enforceable, nor negotiating for compensation from the landlord for disruption or extra expense to the supply of heating and water.

Elle_Belle

Thanks for replyng so quickly Pee x

Yeah I guess you're right about the bills vs. interest rates, at the end of the day she does have the mortgage to pay.

We haven't had the boiler on since mid Feb for heating as we are all very poor if I'm honest (one HM has been recently made redundant) and we were desperate for this situation with the bills not to arise. Obviously we have to heat the hot water but as we were unaware the immersion (sp?) heater even existed we have been using the gas combi boiler to do this (despite the immersion heater being on at the same time). So our arguement effectively is that that has been running with the thermostat on full since before we moved in but we haven't had any benefit from it as we were using the gas as our parents taught us if that makes sense! She was also unaware of the existence of the immersion heater. But I don't know if any of this will really stand up if that makes sense as I am sure she will seek legal advice.

We are in the process of compiling a letter to her so we have everything down in black and white, but it's just knowing whether we are justified in what we're saying really. With regards to anyone else including the friend moving in, that isn't an option, the tennancy ends on the 28th June and none of us can afford to stay here for another year

Jowo_2

Elle_Belle,

Interest rates are her concern so don't fret on that.

Sending a diplomatic letter to seek clarification of the position and asking for consideration of a rebate for disruption is fine. Also, if you wish, get the Ts and Cs of that specific clause on energy reviewed to see if it can be challenged.

As a landlord, I would never ever include utility bills in a contract. The stories of tenants having the heating on 24/7 even during the summer while living windows open are not urban myths. Lack of direct responsibility for consumption just leads to complacency. Energy caps are just too difficult to administer and just result in arguments.

I make my tenants responsible for all bills. When my last set complained about high bills, alleging a fault in the system was responsible, an engineer and myself found no fault whatsoever, other than large increases in the wholesale price of gas that was passed onto the consumer and their failure to set simple timers, despite having numerous university degrees between them. I told them to get an energy monitoring device and that they were responsible for any engineering charges if no fault is found.

Why don't you offer to take over the utility bills from her next year, putting them in everyone's name and getting a device to track consumption? That way, you will stay on top of things with no nasty surprises.

Elle_Belle

Hi Jowo,

I understand completely that there will be various points of view, and we are desperate to negotiate this between us and the LL as we have had such a great relationship it would be sad to ruin it now!

Our problem with the immersion heater is that we did not know it was there, and when we mentioned this to her she seemed to not know either, we were told when we moved in that the heating and water was all run off the combi boiler. Our gas usage for the periods where all the radiators etc. were working was well below our allowance but unfortunately the electricity was way above. The British Gas man explained that having the immersion heater on all the time is like having a massive kettle on all the time, and as soon as we were aware of its existence we turned it off.

clutton_2

you have signed a legally binding contract - and you will have to pay

it is a lesson in life we all learn when we leave home - energy costs

Elle_Belle

Oooof you can tell I'm new to this my replies are all over the place!

Jowo wrote: »

The stories of tenants having the heating on 24/7 even during the summer while living windows open are not urban myths. Lack of direct responsibility for consumption just leads to complacency. Energy caps are just too difficult to administer and just result in arguments.

This is completely true, this is what the previous tennants did, running up a bill of over £2000 in less than a year. This is why this situation is so sad, we have all been _so_ careful with our usuage, the timers are set for more than appropriate times on the hot water, the central heating was only ever on when we needed it, we all have extra duvets and things rather than using extra heating, we put energy saving lightbulbs in everywhere, made draught protectors for the door, etc. etc. We had all lived in horrible student digs before and really wanted to make an effort to keep this as a proper home, and she's always been so grateful for everything we've done to fix what the last tennants left the house like. It's so difficult because I understand her position entirely, we're just trying to be reasonable in what we genuinely don't feel we could have prevented.

Jowo wrote: »

Why don't you offer to take over the utility bills from her next year, putting them in everyone's name and getting a device to track consumption? That way, you will stay on top of things with no nasty surprises.

Unfortunately we're moving out on the 27th as we cannot afford to take the lease on again so that isn't possible. Most of us are having to move back with parents, stupid credit crunch

Thank you for your replies Jowo, it's so helpful to get a landlords perspective because we really don't want to upset ours!

Elle_Belle

clutton wrote: »

you have signed a legally binding contract - and you will have to pay

it is a lesson in life we all learn when we leave home - energy costs

Oh I'm not contesting that we will have to pay we are just trying to negotiate the amount down where we feel we are not wholly responsible for the cost. I have lived with a couple of people previously who have just expected to be let out of contracts because they had not anticipated the costs or similar and that is certainly not the case here, a £350+ bill you were in no way expecting at the end of your tennancy is just quite difficult to deal with :sad: