Sole Trader Business - Want to Switch Electricity Provided from SSE

robatbentley

My wife is the sole trader of a small horse riding school (IP9 2DQ) and I'm investigating the switching options for our all-electric services. Problem is that both our house (where we live) and out-buildings/stables (on same site as house) are on different meters & accounts but both setup as 2-year Micro Business accounts with SSE (ssebusiness.co.uk). The house uses massive amounts of electric (in-laws keeping warm!) to the tune of about 30,000 units/year (give or take 10,000 units/year), and the business side uses about 15,000-20,000 units/year.

Q1: Does our house have to be on a business account?
Q2: Does the out-buildings/stables business have to be with the same electric company as the house? Both meters easily accessible.

I ask this as it could be cheaper to have the house on a residential tariff but selecting the appropriate business vs residential comparison sites (including your own) is a real nightmare. I've plugged-in our house and out-buildings meter account figures using your "Cheap Energy Club" (residential only) which says I should be in for about £900/£400 savings/year for the respective accounts.
More details available if required.
Please help.

WhoIsThat

robatbentley wrote: »

My wife is the sole trader of a small horse riding school (IP9 2DQ) and I'm investigating the switching options for our all-electric services. Problem is that both our house (where we live) and out-buildings/stables (on same site as house) are on different meters & accounts but both setup as 2-year Micro Business accounts with SSE (ssebusiness.co.uk). The house uses massive amounts of electric (in-laws keeping warm!) to the tune of about 30,000 units/year (give or take 10,000 units/year), and the business side uses about 15,000-20,000 units/year.

Q1: Does our house have to be on a business account?
Q2: Does the out-buildings/stables business have to be with the same electric company as the house? Both meters easily accessible.

I ask this as it could be cheaper to have the house on a residential tariff but selecting the appropriate business vs residential comparison sites (including your own) is a real nightmare. I've plugged-in our house and out-buildings meter account figures using your "Cheap Energy Club" (residential only) which says I should be in for about £900/£400 savings/year for the respective accounts.
More details available if required.
Please help.

Give or take 10,000 kWh of electricity a year (for your home)? :think: :undecided

Anyway
A1. Probably not
A2. Probably not

Robin9

VAT on the domestic will be 5% ; riding school 20%

macman

What sort of electric heating are you using in the house?!
E7 with an immersion heater and NSH's I hope.
If separately metered, you can have separate tariffs and separate suppliers, assuming there are two different MPAN's.

robatbentley

WhoIsThat wrote: »

Give or take 10,000 kWh of electricity a year (for your home)? :think: :undecided

To put this in perspective and, hopefully, a bit more credibility, we have a monthly direct debit in the region (so my Father-in-law says) £350/month just for the house! My analysis of the last 4-5 years of bills is a little tortuous as this Micro-Business tariff also includes credits from time to time hence my wide error margin of +-10,000 units/year. Imagine living with the in-laws who want electric bar-heaters running 24/7, economy-7 immersion heaters, storage heaters 24/7, doors left open, lights left on... aargh!!

WhoIsThat wrote: »

A1. Probably not
(although if we are to believe your figures, probably yes & you will probably need your own sub-station too
If consumption is primarily for residential/domestic purposes, then you should only incur VAT @ 5%)

We're definately paying the full vat at 20% on the house bills. ...and yes, the house is just domestic/residential purposes.
Are you saying that domestic/residential is only at the 5% vat?

robatbentley

macman wrote: »

If separately metered, you can have separate tariffs and separate suppliers, assuming there are two different MPAN's.

Yes, we have 2 MPAN (13 digit numbers?) references sourced from contract letters from SSE

My concern is that if I implement the residential Cheap Energy Club switching recommendations for the house alone, then we should be in for some significant savings. ...but I have no idea how the law stands regarding business electric supplies despite having a single driveway, opening-up into a car-park with the stables-meter on the right (attached to a barn) and the house-meter on the left (attached to the house). I just want the cheapest option (business or residential) but am abit worried about switching the house to residential that ends up with paying loads more for the co-located business.

JStewer

I'm sure I know this Riding School as I've taken my neice there for riding lessons in the past.

But I don't know of any residential property on the same site.
Where is it exactly?

There is a small house (with a very large garden, and tennis court iirc) to the left hand side of the Riding School as you enter, but that is a different address, and so considered a different "site".

If you have used the Cheap Energy Club, I'm surprised you got any further than putting in the Riding School Address, as that comes up as a business premises.
The address next door, where the house is, is not recognised as a business premises.

robatbentley

JStewer wrote: »

But I don't know of any residential property on the same site. Where is it exactly?

There is a small house (with a very large garden, and tennis court iirc) to the left hand side of the Riding School as you enter, but that is a different address, and so considered a different "site".

Our bungalow is on the south side of the indoor riding school opposite (about 5m) the row of pony stables. Surrounded by trees so not easily visible from the road. I think your reference to a "site" may be the reason why someone originally setup our electricity as a business a/c for both the business buildings and our house/bungalow. A "site" may be where we come a cropper when it comes to downgrading our home to a residential property.

JStewer wrote: »

If you have used the Cheap Energy Club, I'm surprised you got any further than putting in the Riding School Address, as that comes up as a business premises.

The CEC forms readily accepted our full address (just checked again) and no hints that I was using a business address where only residential was supported. i.e. "Equestrian Centre, Bergholt Road, Bentley, IPSWICH, Suffolk, IP9 2DQ"

JStewer

Thanks, I see it now on google

As you say, it's well shielded from the business side by trees & shrubs.

With regards the address, I actually used moneysupermarket.com, as I thought that is where the CEC gets all its data from. Perhaps I'm wrong. (I don't have a CEC account myself)

Anyway, as others have said, as long as you/Mannie have 2 separate MPANs, there 'should' be no issue with getting 2 different suppliers.
In any event, the house should be charged at just 5% VAT if only (mainly) used for residential purposes in any event.

The fact that you effectively have 2 separate properties at the same address may, however, cause some issues as most residential suppliers will only allow 1 MPAN per address.

However, I know farms, for example, have their farmhouse on a residential tariff and the farm itself on a commercial tariff. But this is because they usually have agreed 2 separate addresses with the post office (and so are in the postcode table)
e.g. "The Farm House" and "The Grain Store" or "The Cow Shed"

I suppose at the momemt all your post, both personal & business, all gets pushed into the same mailbox.

But I do see there is already at least 2 separate addresses that seem available to you, i.e. "The Equestrian Centre" & "The Bentley Riding School"

Perhaps you could use these to separate your private residence from the business if the post office won't otherwise assist you (and you have no other need for both addresses). I'm presuming both addresses pertain to your land.

robatbentley

JStewer wrote: »

I suppose at the moment all your post, both personal & business, all gets pushed into the same mailbox.

But I do see there is already at least 2 separate addresses that seem available to you, i.e. "The Equestrian Centre" & "The Bentley Riding School"

Perhaps you could use these to separate your private residence from the business if the post office won't otherwise assist you (and you have no other need for both addresses). I'm presuming both addresses pertain to your land.

As you say, all our PO letters arrive at the same address even though we're currently known by the our electricity suppliers (SSE) as "Equestrian Centre" (for the house) and "Bentley Riding Center" for the horse business.

I'm now beginning to suspect that too few questions were asked some 25 years ago and many dubious assumptions were made. Think I need to start asking a few questions of SSE to see if they should have pointed out our mistake to us.

Thanks for your advice and info.

macman

Your domestic usage is, bluntly, insane. To run an all electrci property with E7 is sensible with NSH's and an immersion heater, but then to have electric heaters running all day as well is absurd, as all the day (peak) rate usage is charged at a premium rate. What is the insulation in this property that makes it leach heat at such a rate? What have you done to reduce that?
To make sense of this you need to tell us the annual kWh consumption on each E7 register (|night and day), and what tariff you are on.
Regardless of this, a switch to a domestic tariff will save you an instant 15% on the VAT alone, in addition to a cheaper domestic rate as well. That would be a start-but, with bills of £4,200 a year (about 350% higher than the UK average), not nearly enough.