Bills Included, apparently not...

Kolokial

Hi folks,

I might have fallen into a newbie trap here. I'm currently renting a a room in a house, and when I came to view the place I made sure to ask if bills were included in the rental price, to which the Agent said yes. Otherwise I would not have even considered taking the place, as I've been lumbered with bills before and so would prefer I paid the landlord who would take care of the bills and inform me if they had gone up and increase my rent to match.

So I've been here six months now and decided to open a letter addressed to 'The Occupier' to find that it was a 'WARRANT OF ENTRY TO ENTER YOUR HOME', now I'm not phased by this sort of material as I'm aware lots of companies do it all the time to persuade people to pay up, and that most of time it has about zero legitimacy.

However upon reading further down, I see that it's in regards to the energy supplier for this property, NPower. Behind that envelope is a letter from NPower, also addressed to 'The Occupier', I open it up to find that the bill has not been paid for the entirety of the six months I've been here!

Immediately I've gone back to my tenancy agreement to find on the first line it reads '1. Monthly rent £XXXX bills inclusive/exclusive', with exclusive scribbled out. Which lead me to search for the meaning of 'Bills inclusive/exclusive'. Apparently there's a broad legal definition of that term, and without a specific list of what is and is not included, my house mates and I (who were all under the impression that the bills were coming out of our rent too!) may now be liable for a bill that we thought we were already paying. (Though, I should point out there is nothing in the tenancy agreement to state what is and is not included, it's completely ambiguous.)

Is there anything that can be done about this? Is the Agent at fault for misleading me/us, along with a vague line of text in the agreement? Or will we have to bite the bullet and pay up?

AnnieO1234

Do you have the original advert for the room/house?

What is the nature of the tenancy? Do you just rent a room in a house? Is the landlord in occupation? Do you rent the house jointly with the other tenants or individually?

Do any of you have any emails or similar that could back up what you are saying?

Could you post the precise wording of the agreement relating to bills?

X

ging84

tenancy agreements normally make it quite clear that the tenant is responsible for gas water and electric charges and council tax so it makes it very clear.
If it does not then you should not have an issue over the suppliers chasing you for any money. You do have the problem that they may install a prepay meter which will be setup so it takes a % of your top ups to repay the outstanding balance, so you could end up paying it that way

BitterAndTwisted

If your tenancy agreement says "bills included" then it's the landlord's responsibility to pay it. Forward the latest correspondence to the agent and send a photocopy to the landlord.

Now, if neither of them choose to take responsibility for making payment it's likely that the suppler will turn up to turn off the supply.

Bills, plural, will have been arriving the property for some time, and it's possible that since they were not addressed to a named individual no-one has chosen to open, read them and forward to the agent/landlord. Which is a particularly foolish thing to have done.

Someone in the property (i.e. you) could choose to contact the supplier direct and give them the name and address to who the bills should be addressed and sent to.

Blackpool_Saver

Nobody can answer this except landlord/agents

jjlandlord

You are most likely liable to NPower at this point.

However, since your tenancy agreement states that the rent is inclusive of bills you should be able to recover the full cost of the bill from your landlord.

Obviously you should also demand that utilities accounts be in the landlord's name from now on.

Errata

Didn't it occur to any of you to ask which 'bills' were included?

pmlindyloo

It sounds as if you are in a HMO (House of Multiple Occupation)

In a HMO the landlord is liable for the council tax and adjusts the rent accordingly.

If you have individual tenancy agreements then it is often the case that the bills are included as it would be difficult to work out individual liabilities for the utility bills.

From what you are saying your contract says that bills are included and I would agree that the letter addressed to the occupier should be sent to the landlord.

I am assuming that when you took over the tenancy you did not inform NPower of the meter readings.

G_M

Kolokial wrote: »

..... my tenancy agreement to find on the first line it reads '1. Monthly rent £XXXX bills inclusive/exclusive', with exclusive scribbled out.

You need to read the entire tenancy agreement to find any other clauses that may be relevant. It may specify elsewhere which biils are included (or excluded)..

However, if there is nothing else other than that simple statement, then clearly the bills - all bills - gas, electric, water, council tax are included. Arguably this could apply to phone/broadband, though you might be pushing your luck there!

The difficulty is that it seems likely that npower are planing to cut off supply or install a pre-payment meter.

f they install a meter, you should keep track (with evidence if you can, of all payments you make via this, since you should be claiming the osts back from the LL.

Your priority now is a letter (LETTER) to the landlord, at the addressed provided "for the serving of notices", (plus a copy to his agent if there is one.

Enclose a copy of the tenancy agreement, highlighting the above wording.

Explain what is happening, and enclose any bills, plus a COPY, (keep the original) of the letter you've just received.

Request that the LL pay the outstanding bills within 3 working days.
Request the Ll to contact the utility company to take on the account and give them his address.

Advise the LL that in the event that you are forced to pay the utility company yourself (ie under threat of disconnection) you wll deduct the costs from future rent.

Bear in mind that if you are in a periodic tenancy (ie out of any fixed term) the LL might retaliate by serving notice (a S21 Notice).

On the other hand this might be an oversight, he might apologise, and sort out the problem.

Kolokial

@AnnieO1234 - I'm afraid I don't have the original advertisement, it was online and has since been removed. The landlord does not live with us. I don't have any emails of that nature, but I will check with the other tenants. The exact wording relating to bills is as above :

1. Monthly rent £__________ bills inclusive/exclusive.

@AnnieO1234 & @pmlindyloo - Yes, it's a HMO. Something I was not made aware of until after moving in and much research.

@BitterAndTwisted - Yes no-one would have read them.

@Blackpool_Save - I am going to contact the Agent regarding this, however my concern is that his response will be along the lines of 'It doesn't say in the contract I am liable for those bills, which means you are.' Does this seem likely?

@jjlandlord - With the above wording in my tenancy, is that enough to enforce a recovery of the cost, if we have to pay?

@Errata - Admittedly no, though I remember asking him twice if ALL bills were included, to which he said yes. Otherwise I would not have moved in.

@pmlindyloo - That would make sense, as we do not receive Council Tax letters, and the broadband connection has never been switched off (If it had I'd be the first to complain!). We didn't contact Npower no. This was under the assumption that the Agent was taking care of the bills.

@G_M - I've been going over my tenancy agreement looking for references to bills, the word only appears once and that's in the line I've quoted. (The broadband is included , another reason I choose this place). I think the Agent manages the property on the landlords behalf as I have had no contact or dealings with him whatsoever, but will do as you've suggested and write a letter to both. I am indeed in a periodic tenancy now. Would an S21 have an impact on my references for future landlords do you know?

I've just mentioned this to my house mate, and he doesn't seem that bothered by the whole thing, in fact he's suggested that the Agent/LL has probably changed suppliers and not informed NPower...How likely is this?

[Deleted User]

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but this sounds like a mistake rather than misrepresentation. If the advertisement mentioned that all bills were included and the tenancy agreement does too and the broadband, water and council tax have been paid for I see no reason for the gas/electricity to not also be paid, so I would lean towards this being a case of your landlord forgetting to pay rather than expecting you to pay.

If you're in an HMO I assume that you don't know the other tenants and you didn't move in at the same time as them, is that true? If so no reasonable landlord would expect you to work out that you were responsible for the gas/electricity and set it up amongst yourselves, especially when people are most likely moving in and out at different times, it would be a nightmare to manage. If you were expected to do this they would at least have told you.

The only plausible explanation I can think of is that perhaps the previous person who lived in your room had managed the gas/electric (paid the bill, collected from other tenants) and they cancelled once they moved out? If that was the case though, the other people that were there before you would surely have mentioned something to you?

Can you shed some more light on the living situation, specifically who else lives there and when they moved in / out?