Charged for landlord electricity supply

factoryphil

I live in a block of 6 flats which is maintained by a management company. We pay them a 6 monthly fee for cleaning, gardening, buildings insurance etc and electricity for lighting/heating the communal areas.
We also pay eon individually (6 flats) for the electric we use within our flats.
Our management company have now sent us an adjusted bill for over £1260 per flat. This is not a new bill - just an adjustment.
The company that was managing us has now been taken over and this adjustment is from the new owners.
The fees include estate charges which were not collected by the previous company and I have a letter stating that it is being collected on their behalf - even though this company no longer exists. Do I still havve to pay it?
Also on the adjustment is a fee of over £6000 for the landlords electric supply and this is dating back to 2006.
I think they can only charge us for the last 18 months under the Landlords and Tenants Act if at all but I am unsure what the landlords supply is. Can anyone shed light on this?
Should I pay this AS WELL AS paying for electric in my maintenance bill (for communal areas) AND paying eon for personal use in my flat?
We have had many discrepencies in the bills since we have lived here and are looking towards managing the block ourselves.
The management company by the way is called O/M Property Management (previously Solitaire Property Management).
Thanks in advance, Phil.

BitterAndTwisted

The adjustment could be as a result of not taking a meter-reading and paying estimated bills over a long period. This is more common than you may think, especially in buildings or estates where the property managers rarely actually visit the sites themselves. You should query the charge and ask them for an explanation.

It could be that the previous charges were based on estimates to arrive at the annual budget but it was an inaccurate forecast. Hence to £6k. It's possible that the landlords supply includes the charge for external lighting and this could result in much higher charges than originally estimated. Again, you should ask for clarification. IN WRITING. Any decent property manager should be able to justify your apportioned charges.

Ulfar

How big is the block, £6000 sounds like an awful lot of electricity.

As for them wanting to collect fees for the previous agent, that is up to the previous agent to collect any fees or otherwise should have been cleared before the new company took over.

O/M property management are another part of the Peverel group just as Solitaire are or were, not sure what the status is as the owner is in financial trouble.

They are a nightmare to deal with, just google them or search on these boards.

factoryphil

Thanks for the replies.
Most of the landlords supply bill IS from readings taken by Solitaire. I have requested and received copies of bills from them. I also have seperate bills which cover the communal lighting/heating of the block.
There are 6 flats in our block and jointly we pay around £600 per yr for communal electricity.
I also put around £20 per week in a pre-pay meter for my personal use.
On top of this O/M are charging us £6000 for the landlord supply dating back to 2006 which I believe they should have paid.
I am awaiting an explanation from O/M.
We have been dealing with O/M and Solitaire for 4 yrs now and have had to employ Solicitors, MPs etc in the past.
Yes, they are a nightmare.

Ulfar

You are paying more for communal electricity than I pay for a 2 bedroom house.

What is this electricity supplying, I used to live in a block of six spread over three floors and all it powered was lighting it came out at much less than you are paying. Do the communal parts need heating this is just a complete waste of energy.

Your personal cost of electricity is huge even for pre-pay, you may want to check that you aren't paying for arrears from a previous resident.

My current use of electricity is less than £30 a month, I have at least one computer on constantly, cook using electricity, heating is gas and wouldn't say I am a light user.

factoryphil

Everybody weve spoken to says it is a lot for this block.There are 3 floors which are lit by 2 energy saving lightbulbs on each floor, 3 lights on the car park and a radiator on the ground floor which is rarely switched on.
As well as the 'landlords supply' bill I have seperate bills (referring to flats 1-6 as a whole) for the car park/communal lights etc. They average around £150 per qtr.
On our estate there are several other blocks the same size and they have been asked to pay less than our block on most of the service charge bills - were paying £600 more than some blocks on this adjustment alone.
Efforts to find out why have been met with limited success as bills get updated or adjusted.
We have spoken to a resident who tells us one of the blocks has not received ANY maintenance bills in the last 4yrs even though then are maintained by O/M. So are we paying for that block as well? I have been assured that we arent but Im not convinced.

I am paying a lot on personal electricity every week but thats a different story - the meters were wired wrong when the block was built so my neighbor and I were paying each others bills, unknowingly. When eon realised they put a hold on our accounts until it was sorted and I ended up with a £500 bill when they finally agreed to let me pay nearly 9 months later. Im now paying it off weekly which is why I spend around £20 a week.

O/M are also chasing us for £17000 estate fees which Solitaire apparently forgot to charge us for so the whole estate is now been asked to pay it between them.O/M apologised on their behalf. Very civilised of them..

On another note, we had a meeting with O/M last yr to confirm the property boundaries on the estate and O/M had different estate plans than the ones given to residents. Also the estate builders didnt contact the council to ask them to take over things such as street lighting/road maintenance so were not sure if we are paying for the street lights etc as well. The builders are apparently in the process of contacting the council.
Thats just an example of what were dealing with. There are several other issues so we have arranged a meeting for next weekI. Should be interesting..
SORRY for the long post.

G_M

Can't you take control of the building management yourselves? 6 flats? Go and have a chat with the others, then visit this site for advice.

factoryphil

Yes it looks like we will be going down the Right To Manage route but we need so sort all of this out first with O/M and we also need to get the council to take control of the estates lighting/roads etc.

factoryphil

Just a quick update.
The management company have visited our block and cannot find the meter for the landlord supply - even though it has been read by them in the past. They dont even know what it is supplying so our acounts have been put on hold for now..

Ulfar

Can't find the meter, this sounds dodgier and dodgier.

Do you know where the meter is to check readings ?

BitterAndTwisted

I'm glad that they've put your accounts on hold for the time being.

Want to know what I suspect? That someone somewhere has taken a meter-reading for the car-park lighting for example and reported it to the utility company on the wrong account number, hence the massive bill. This happens much more often that you would think possible. It's especially likely to happen when there are different people being employed to take the readings. Someone at the managing agents is going to have to find all the meters, identify the meter numbers, identify what meters are supplying which parts of the estate/building, take new readings and sort the whole mess out with the utility company. This could take some time.