How to track down communal electricity supplier?

QuantumCaffeine

Joyful wrote: »

I would suggest contacting your own Energy Supplier. Advise you are worried you might have to pay this usage. They can then check Ecoes and find out who the supplier is. You can then call the supplier to check. Just make sure they don't put the whole bill into your name!

I've tried calling the most likely supplier (Scottish Hydro), but (a) it's not them and (b) they can't legally tell me who it is as I'm not the landlord. (Bit of a problem, that, given that there is no landlord.) However, they suggested I call MPAS, so I'll try that tomorrow.

(By the by, MPAS seems to stand for "Meter Point Administration Service". There doesn't seem to be a meter, so are they still the right people to call?)

QuantumCaffeine

Haarlem wrote: »

Much communial lighting was via an unmetered supply where the owners paid a fixed amount based on the calculated consumption of the fittings. (The same as street lighting)

Your Distribution Company should have some records needed to identify how to turn off the supply in an emergency.

Have you found where the communial lighting can be isolated? It may tell you something there.

Someone should be paying.

Part of the project I was working on when the funding was pulled was to identfy and record all these unmetered supplies and get them charged.

I'm guessing the supply is unmetered: I can find a fusebox and a timeswitch, but no meter. However, there do also appear to be a couple of sockets hooked into the communal supply (the cleaner uses them for hoovering etc.), so that might complicate any consumption calculations. (Also, there's nothing in the cupboard containing the fusebox to indicate who might be responsible.)

The distribution company -- Scottish Hydro, here -- has no record of the account: the closest they can come is an old account that was closed in 2009. If that was it, though, the connection wouldn't still be live.

Re. your project: do you mean that there are a lot of cases like this, supplies that the supplier appears to have lost track of?

Cheers,

QC

P.S. When you talk of getting supplies like this charged, what strategy did you take when it came to charging for electricity already supplied? (Will there be records going back far enough to show when payments were last made?)

QuantumCaffeine

specialsparky wrote: »

Hi QuantumCaffiene,
Ok so now I know what a Factor is, you live and learn. How do you deal with the costs assocaited with general upkeep of communal areas, things like decorating or if the door doesn't close or a window gets broken. It should be covered in the same way.

When it comes to general upkeep, the current factor arranges for the work to be done then charges us on an ad-hoc basis as the bills come in. As far as shared costs go, the title deeds simply say that we are jointly liable for the upkeep of communal areas; no explicit mention is made of the electricity supply.

Looking back at the accounts provided by our previous factor, he did not bill for electricity, but did include charges for supplying lightbulbs. As such, I have to assume that he was aware of the situation and had decided to leave it be. (That said, no contract was ever signed, so I'm not sure whether any liability attaches to him.)

I wouldn't be comfortable leaving this unresolved as one thing I am confident whether its Scotland,England or Wales electricity is not free!
Good luck and I hope this helps

Quite so: the goal here is to make sure we pay what we are due. However, I'd also say there have been faults on both sides -- we'd have paid if we'd been billed, after all, and I'm the one now trying to sort it out -- so I'm keen to make sure we reach an equitable compromise.

Cardew

I would firstly check that the common parts electricity isn't metered through some unsuspecting flat owner's meter - probably on the ground floor!

Stranger things have happened.

QuantumCaffeine

Cardew wrote: »

I would firstly check that the common parts electricity isn't metered through some unsuspecting flat owner's meter - probably on the ground floor!

Stranger things have happened.

True enough, though I suspect not. (The people who've been here the longest vaguely remember paying a separate bill once upon a time, but sadly no further details.)

If it *is* going through someone's meter, how would we go about finding out (a) which meter and (b) how much electricity is being used?

Cardew

QuantumCaffeine wrote: »

True enough, though I suspect not. (The people who've been here the longest vaguely remember paying a separate bill once upon a time, but sadly no further details.)

If it *is* going through someone's meter, how would we go about finding out (a) which meter and (b) how much electricity is being used?

Plug a kettle in a socket and look at the meter in the suspect flat to see if the meter is spinning fast.

Incidentally where are the fuses/RCB for the lights and sockets in the common parts?

DVardysShadow

Cardew wrote: »

... Incidentally where are the fuses/RCB for the lights and sockets in the common parts?

Good thought. Something tripping or blowing will put the pressure on to find the supply far more immediately than the metering and billing question

Owain_Moneysaver

Scottish Power (SSEB as was) used to have an arrangement whereby the communal meter was read and apportioned onto the flats' electricity bills, so there wasn't a separate 'communal' bill. I don't know how that works with competition in retail metering now.

If the close lighting was installed or renovated by the council then the council might be paying, on an unmetered basis as for streetlighting. Or it might be whoever wired up the building submains put an unofficial connection (on the special choccy biccies tariff!)

Personally I'd let sleeping dogs lie.

QuantumCaffeine

Cardew wrote: »

Incidentally where are the fuses/RCB for the lights and sockets in the common parts?

In a utility cupboard on the ground floor. There's a fusebox, a double socket and what looks like a timer switch, but no meter that I can see. (Shouldn't the meter, if it exists, be near the fusebox? That's certainly the way things are in my flat.)

As I understand it, if the communal supply is being billed to one of the flats, the fusebox would typically be *in* that flat, so the fact that the box is in a communal area would tend to imply otherwise. However, we can still check it out.

QuantumCaffeine

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

If the close lighting was installed or renovated by the council then the council might be paying, on an unmetered basis as for streetlighting. Or it might be whoever wired up the building submains put an unofficial connection (on the special choccy biccies tariff!)

The building was converted by Northern Housing, so it's unlikely the Council were involved. However, Scottish Hydro have told me that if they did the work there would almost certainly be a meter, and there isn't (as far as I can see). Maybe we are on the choccy biccies tariff after all!

I've just got off the phone with MPAS, and they have no record of any communal supply. In some ways this is good (they can't backdate anything) but it means we're still no closer to knowing what's actually going on. Their suggestion was that either I hire an electrician to investigate (which I'm loath to do) or that they could send someone out to have a look. To get them to do it, though, we'd all have to agree and individually confirm it in writing. Since I seem to be about the only one who wants this sorted out, that's unlikely to happen.

Frankly, I've about reached my limit with this. Unless it turns out that one of the flats is being billed (which we can check using Cardew's kettle test), I'm inclined to let sleeping dogs lie too, and reopen the issue if/when anything goes wrong with the supply. (The woman at MPAS didn't sound at all bothered by the notion that we might be getting free electricity, presumably because it's such a small amount.)