Business Accounts for Domestic Vulnerable Adults 15 February at 11:49AM in Energy 6 replies 217 views

Stree14

Hi, we manage the finances for clients who lack the mental capacity and who live in supported living placements.  These are basically properties owned by a housing association and have tenancy agreements in place for each bedroom.  The housing association have a business account with an energy provider but our clients have to pay these bills in full.  As you can imagine, these bills for the winter period are around £1500.00 a month, split between 4 tenants.  The housing association charge a service charge but this does not include energy bills so the tenants have to pay these themselves.  However, is it right they should be paying at business rate and should they be receiving discounts from the government?  My clients cannot afford to pay £375 each a month for just gas, their only income is benefits due to their mental disabilities.

pochase

Welcome to the forum.

This is not an uncommon setup if there are sub meters in a block of flats. The flats will not have official meters but use sub meters and are charged by the landlord.

In most cases the landlord needs to have / has a business account, and will bill the rates they are paying to the the tenants. They are not allowed to make a profit and can only bill what they are paying themselves plus potentially an admin fee.

Unfortunately it is completely legal that the landlord will charge the higher cost of a business tariff, this has not just changed, they were always paying busienss rates, but they might have been the same or even cheaper than domestic rates so nobody cared.

There is a small reduction on business rates and those should have been carried forward, but nothinh like the EPG on domestic accounts.

Unfortunately they also will not have received the £400 EBSS payment. Make sure to apply for the alternative scheme from the end of February

https://www.gov.uk/apply-energy-bill-support-if-not-automatic

SnakePlissken

Stree14 said:

Hi, we manage the finances for clients who lack the mental capacity and who live in supported living placements.  These are basically properties owned by a housing association and have tenancy agreements in place for each bedroom.  The housing association have a business account with an energy provider but our clients have to pay these bills in full.  As you can imagine, these bills for the winter period are around £1500.00 a month, split between 4 tenants.  The housing association charge a service charge but this does not include energy bills so the tenants have to pay these themselves.  However, is it right they should be paying at business rate and should they be receiving discounts from the government?  My clients cannot afford to pay £375 each a month for just gas, their only income is benefits due to their mental disabilities.

Might be worth raising with your local MP and councilor as does seem unfair to people who are vulnerable being charged at business rather than domestic rates.

Worth also  seeing if it  breaches the equalties act 2010  as  they should have protection under this. Could be taken under being discriminated against compared to a person who is not disabled.

Citizens advice would be able to help  and advise on if a breach or not of equalities act as they use solicitors for advice. Some solicitors even do shifts with them

Spoonie_Turtle

SnakePlissken said:

Stree14 said:

Hi, we manage the finances for clients who lack the mental capacity and who live in supported living placements.  These are basically properties owned by a housing association and have tenancy agreements in place for each bedroom.  The housing association have a business account with an energy provider but our clients have to pay these bills in full.  As you can imagine, these bills for the winter period are around £1500.00 a month, split between 4 tenants.  The housing association charge a service charge but this does not include energy bills so the tenants have to pay these themselves.  However, is it right they should be paying at business rate and should they be receiving discounts from the government?  My clients cannot afford to pay £375 each a month for just gas, their only income is benefits due to their mental disabilities.

Might be worth raising with your local MP and councilor as does seem unfair to people who are vulnerable being charged at business rather than domestic rates.

Worth also  seeing if it  breaches the equalties act 2010  as  they should have protection under this. Could be taken under being discriminated against compared to a person who is not disabled.

Citizens advice would be able to help  and advise on if a breach or not of equalities act as they use solicitors for advice. Some solicitors even do shifts with them

I'm not sure it would because lots of nondisabled people live in flats that are on commercial tariffs/heat networks.  The only possible argument is that these disabled people don't have a choice of where to live, but realistically many nondisabled people don't have a meaningful choice either.  But I'm not a lawyer (just a disabled person who sees a lot of clear-cut discrimination totally dismissed), so could be wrong.

ariarnia

it sounds really complicated (legally i mean) and i can see the arguments on both sides. 

i guess my first question would be if there are actually individual meters (it sounds not if they just split a bill 4 ways)

i'm also kind of wondering if a guardian of one of the residents could take over the energy supply to the property and run it as a residential shared house (like a student let)?

because it could be that the housing association isnt allowed to take out a residential energy contract (as a business) and the tenants aren't allowed individual contracts (either because of legal capacity or because theres not individual meters) so a legal guardian might be able to (but obviously like with student lets would have to take responsibility for the hole bill and getting the money from the other residents)

it really depends on the set up and why this system is currently in place (if its a requirement or if it was just easier) 

Stree14

Thanks Ariarnia, I think this is probably an issue for all tenants who live in supported living properties as the companies who are buying up this sort of accommodation, have full control over tenancies.  I acknowledge that as a housing association/company, they need to get energy for the tenants and the only way is to have a business account but as this is putting the tenant under financial hardship, shouldn't the landlord be doing more about it?  There is a loop hole in the system where they seem to be allowed to do this but if the tenants only income is benefits, in this case, due to not having the mental capacity to manage their own finances, shouldn't these energy companies be responsible for recognising the type of households gas is provided?  Perhaps I'm just dreaming that this should be recognised.  

We are unable to get a guardian type person to register the bills as we only manage a couple of clients/tenants in a large house.

Dolor

The Government does provide Housing Associations with financial support to reduce energy costs:

‘9 January 2023

The Government has announced a new Energy Bills Discount Scheme (EBDS) from April 2023 to April 2024 for eligible non-domestic consumers in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The current Energy Bill Relief Scheme announced in September comes to an end in March 2023. It supports businesses and public sector organisations such as schools and hospitals by providing a discount on wholesale gas and electricity prices.

Eligible non-domestic customers facing significantly inflated gas and electricity prices in light of global price pressures, triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have benefitted from the discount since 1 October 2022.’