Landlord pays bills - A few issues?

dimbo61

Do your own research.
Check online what the council tax is for the property.
Council website.
If you have a water meter read it and ask the water utility company how much they charge per unit.
As others have said read the meters and consider if you want to question how much your LL is charging.

pablakeman

dimbo61 wrote: »

Do your own research.
Check online what the council tax is for the property.
Council website.
If you have a water meter read it and ask the water utility company how much they charge per unit.
As others have said read the meters and consider if you want to question how much your LL is charging.

My main question was around who is responsible for paying the bills (we pay the landlord, yet tenancy agreement clearly states we pay the bills, whereas for council tax it says we pay the landlord, proving that it isn't semantics). Questioning how much LL is charging would be a next step, but this question is about who pays the bills (and thus who has the right to change supplier etc...)

Whether I do or not is a different matter. I do appreciate the advice everybody has given though.

CIS

whereas for council tax it says we pay the landlord, proving that it isn't semantic

That's to comply with legislation stating the council tax has to be in the landlords name and allowing them to make sure they can recoup the monies from you - it is surprising though how many landlords didn't have the council tax payment clause in their agreements and then later complained about how they'd pay the bill.

Pixie5740

I wouldn't be worried about whose name the utility bills are actually in since it's not your name. If I was the one whose name was on the utility bills for a property I didn't live in and wasn't the landlord of...then I'd be concerned.

Is your rent inclusive of bills or do you pay rent (inc. council tax) and then pay a separate amount to your landlord for the other utilities? If your TA says that you are responsible for paying the utilities then you could take meter readings and contact a supplier yourself to set up bills in your name (opening up a can of worms though for the sake of £4 a month). I'm not sure what your landlord's reaction to that would be though.

sniggings

pablakeman wrote: »

Thanks for advice everyone!

At the moment the bills aren't in the landlords name which worries me. We could save £50/60 a year each if we switched suppliers, and a smart meter would allow us to keep an eye on what we are using.

It is a house where the people don't know each other before they come in, so a few at the moment use a lot of elec/gas (heating on all day in summer etc...). We don't know if LL is overcharging as we never see bills, but as per our tenancy agreement we do pay them (rather than landlord paying).

Therefore the bills need changing to either the landlord (preferable, because it saves us hassle) or us (not preferable, but then we could at least have more freedom)

Not sure how you can claim you could each save £50/60 when you also say you don't get to see the bill?

Why don't you know if you are being over charged? it's very easy to work out your usage, and find out who your supplier is, to get the cost of the energy, then it's a simple sum to work out your cost of usage.