shared houses - companies who deal with the bills

CANDYTROOPER1922

Hello

I am a student and will be leaving halls this year and moving in to a shared house. All tenants are responsible to pay the utility bills. I understand that there are companies out there who will deal with all the utility bills and each tenant will pay the company an equal amount and the company will then pay the gas, electric & water to the utility companies.

Does anyone know or have details of these companies?

jd87

Why would you want to pay extra money to a third party? Can't you all just get your act together?

CANDYTROOPER1922

because if fellow house mates decide not to pay the third party can deal with them and avoid argurements and i've been told that they can notafy the company which person has contributed towards the bills.

spiro

Never heard of such a company mention on here before. Try asking at the Uni. What I would say is that the elec/gas company are unlikely to care who or who has not paid their share, you are all jointly liable and they will chase whoever they can for the money

spinningsheep

I think you may be thinking of securehomes/onebill who spread your bills over the year and charge you a monthly DD plus a cut for them. I have heard allsorts of stories on them, indeed all they are doing is basically paying your bills for you and charging you a fee for the privilege! My mum used to work for BT in billing at one point and the amount of times customers kicked off for being chased for bills, cut off etc when they had been paying securehomes as they were then, and basically they had not passed the money on, but as they customer they are still liable to pay and then chase securehomes afterwards to get their money back. Prepay meters are the best way to go with a student house. No risk of one of the group being chased for the debt of all of you if the others decide not to pay, same risk whether the bill is in one name or you are all on it (you would be jointly and severably liable, in other words the utility company would pick a name on the bill and chase them) so prepay is best. You can also budget better. You all pay money into a kitty in a jar and that goes on the meter once a week.

tinkerbel

hi there teres one called glide http://www.glide.uk.com/ but im not sure i reccomend them

Premier_2

Wow! Just looked at the prices from glide. :eek:

Don't know of any other company, but if there's a demand maybe it would be a good business venture
How does £100 per month sound for the service (plus whatever you use) for gas and electric (would have to look into more services if you were interested in those) ... cheaper than Glide would probably be

I wonder if there is any relative legislation on operating this kind of business? Or can we just place all client funds in a client account until used to pay the bills?

energycompanyemployee

You also have to consider that the third party company will still register the energy account in all the tennants names, so if your housemates dont pay them. They wont pay the company, and ultimately the energy company will chase all of you . Even if you 'paid' your share.

macman

You are all jointly and severally liable, pick your housemates carefully and take and submit regular meter readings to ensure no nasty surprise catch-up bills.

sp1987

Pick a bill each (I had the sky/broadband bill as they could not vary from month to month ) and it makes life easier, then just paying towards the others as needed. Just ensure you are not responsible for someone else's unexpected overuse (immediately anyway).