Renting a property with all bills included

RAS

Also be very clear where the mains switches are; at least on OP on here had a LL who response to them using the heating was to remove the fuse to the ring mains which was in a building which the tenant could not access.

clark24

I personally wouldn't do it as I like (well need in a control freakery way) to know I am only paying for my own usage of utilities. Say you have a bad winter, you are cautious about having heating on 24/7 as it will be so expensive, so shiver and suffer a bit but the LL has their home like a tropical paradise and you are paying a large amount for gas for them to do that? Or they run those little expensive blowy heaters too, cue high leccy bills that were not your fault. They could thoroughly abuse the situation as how would you prove your usage.

I had similar issues when I was a teenager and lived in a huge shared house with 5 other people, things got very tense around bills time (and not only cos we discovered the bloke in the biggest room had a fantastic crop of 'pot' plants that needed specialist lighting and heating, I paid loads towards their growth yet never benefited from their luxury surroundings lol)

G_M

Maybe Imissedit,but where did the OP say the rental had seperate CT?

My understanding was that the farm as a whole paid CT(and the LLpays this) and the cottage is included within this.

Might be wrong though.

In practicalterms, if there is onlyone oil tank & boiler for heating, and only one electric supply, this is the only way to do things.

Just assess whether the overall rent being charged sems a fair amount given it includes bills. You'll never be able to prove that oneor other of you is doing better from the deal - indeed, as long as you were happy with the rent at the start, doesit matter?

My house has a granny annex attached which I sometimes let - same set up, and I include bills in the rent.

Just be reasonable about usage(eg not leaving the lights on when you go out, or running an electric heater with the windows wide open!)

zcrat41

I'm a farmer and rent some houses out. We had separate meters installed to charge our tenants electric but we were doing some development anyway, until then it was one bill to the whole farm.

Their water is included in their rent as there is one supply to the farm and no way of differentiating.

We gave our tenants the choice of organising their own electricity or they'd buy it from us.

We get much better prices due to the fairly large amounts we buy of heating oil and electricity. A lot of farmers a part of a buying group that means they get these things even cheaper so it may well go in your favour.

If you vaguely know the family ask around. Farmers who take the !!!! have awful reputations local. If we were stupid enough to do illegal things with tax or annoy our tenants by turning off their electric we'd get a pretty bad rep locally very quickly and a lot of farmers trade on their good name. Any decent farmer would sort out a contract for you no problem. The above shouldn't usurp that but be in addition.