Is it OK for a utility provider to only accept payment based on estimated bills?

lizziem_2

One of my utility providers has sent us an introductory letter. They intend to bill us monthly based on estimates and then reconcile the amounts quarterly when they read the meters. This appears to be the only method of billing. What I want to know is, are they allowed to do this? It seems sort of wrong to me to make people give you money they might not owe you and only return it to them after three months. What is the legal position on this? I mean, would I be able to refuse to pay the estimated bills and only pay based on meter readings?

macman

It's perfectly legal-the supplier is only require to read your meter once every 2 years.
Normally you will be on a fixed monthly DD that is agreed at the start of supply.
You can submit meter readings monthly if you wish and the DD will be adjusted according to your actual consumption.
The whole point of a fixed monthly DD is to even out the cashflow, so you will always have a credit going into the winter and a debit or zero balance in the summer.

lizziem_2

You say the fixed amount has to be agreed at the start of supply. But we have not agreed anything - the company was selected by the housing association and presented to us. Some people do prefer these kind of arrangements. However I think they should be a choice and not presented as the only option. For example, our building is a newbuild and very heat efficient. We only used the heating on a couple of occasions last winter, when it snowed. So if we were charged some silly amount based on an average couple we would be paying a lot of our money to this company for no reason. How is that fair? Why should we have to claw back our own money from these people? It seems reasonable to pay for what we use and since they have chosen to read the meter quarterly then I think that is when we should pay our bill, just like any other utility company.

And I don't think we can submit monthly readings. The readings are taken by the company, remotely. There is nothing in the letter about submitting any readings ourselves and no facility online to do so.

macman

You do not have to use the company adopted by your HA. However at the start of a tenancy you are in a deemed contract with the existing supplier, and you cannot switch until you first have registered for an account with them. If you want a quarterly billed tariff instead of DD, then you can have one-but most of the cheapest are based on monthly DD.
if there is an existing smart meter installed then you will not be able to have that read remotely by another supplier, it will have to be read manually by you and the supplier.
With a quarterly billed account you are not 'PAYG'-you are getting up to 3 months open credit.
It would help if you named the supplier.

dogshome

Hi lizzziem - To combat the current suppliers billing methods, take a meter reading every 91 days from the day you moved in and either phone or Email it to the supplier.

There is chance they will ignore it send an Estimated bill anyway, but fortunately you moved in at the start of winter so your first 2 meter readings will cover the winter, and the next one half of the summer.

By doubling up that single Summer reading and adding it to the the Winter readings, you have a reasonably accurate figure of your Annual kwh consumption and can hit the Switch sites to change supplier.

You say one of your suppliers, does this mean your have Gas & Elec each with a different supplier? If so the best deals offered are usually with both from the same company, D/Debit payment and online billing

lizziem_2

The supplier is a small one, I think they are called something switch2. They are billing us for hot water only and we have no choice of supplier. We moved in (as did most other tenants) more than a year ago and the HA has only just got around to organising this. We are more than a little twitchy about receiving our first bill as it is for a whole year it is likely to be considerable and so we do not want estimated readings making it any larger than it has to be.

macman

Who says that you do not have a choice of supplier?
Is this the one?
http://www.switch2.com/residentFAQ1.html
Do you therefore have some central heating source for the whole development?
I'm struggllng to understand your set up. How do you pay for all your other electrical usage in that case?

mattcanary

What a load of nonsense. If your supplier has fitted a smart meter then they should be able to obtain the meter reading remotely each month anyway rather than billing you based upon an estimate. I thought the whole idea of a remote meter was to remove the need for estimated bills.

Or are we, the customer paying extra in our bills to pay for this new technology, only for the suppliers to not even take advantage of it???

Like others have said, you can choose who supplies you. Even if the Housing Association says otherwise.

lizziem_2

We pay for all other electricity separately. Switch2 are billing us for hot water usage as we have a heat exchanger which supplies the whole building.

The supplier was selected by the HA in order to manage the billing on their behalf.

Is there a legal requirement to have a choice of suppliers?

macman

Not if you have a central heating supply system.
However if your other consumption is individually metered per property then you should be able to choose who you want to use as supplier-but this presumably does not amount to much, without any hot water or heating charges on it.