Help! Been paying neighbours electric bill for 14 years!

victor2

poppellerant said:

I don't know how far away the garage is from your property, but have you considered cutting off the electric coming from garage 2 to garage 1 (yours) completely, then running a ring from the house to the garage? Otherwise it sounds like you're paying standing charges for two electric meters, just for the sake of turning a light on and providing your neighbour with some free electric.

That would be my way forward.  Disassociate you and your property from garage 2, then establish a connection from the house supply to the garage.

OP already addressed that:

sonypc100 said:

TheElectricCow said:

Was mentioned by someone else, but do you think it’d be more practical to run a supply from the house to Garage 1 and disconnect this garage from the meter in Garage 2 entirely? 

That would remove the issue of trying to divide up the billing between the two and get rid of the two sets of standing charges. Then if Garage 2 wants to keep the supply they can become responsible for it otherwise there’d be no issue with your supply in them getting the meter removed. I imagine that should be substantially cheaper than adding a brand new supply to to the mix.

Sadly the garage is across and down a lane from the house, there would be no way to run a supply from the house to the garage

MultiFuelBurner

I think I have asked this 3 Times now ......

HOW MUCH IS THIS SHARED SUPPLY COSTING YOU A YEAR?

The reason I am asking is because is it worth changing anything if it doesn't cost you much.

Once we know that figure you might be able to ask the owner of the property to contribute to the cost (but not the standing charge as you would have to pay that anyway imo)

[Deleted User]

Hi,

MultiFuelBurner said:

I think I have asked this 3 Times now ......

HOW MUCH IS THIS SHARED SUPPLY COSTING YOU A YEAR?

The reason I am asking is because is it worth changing anything if it doesn't cost you much.

Once we know that figure you might be able to ask the owner of the property to contribute to the cost (but not the standing charge as you would have to pay that anyway imo)

OP answered this earlier,

MultiFuelBurner said:

I think I asked this before but how much does this garage meter covering the two garages cost you per year? 

''Sorry may have missed your previous question, its about £30 a month,''

MultiFuelBurner

frugalmacdugal said:

Hi,

MultiFuelBurner said:

I think I have asked this 3 Times now ......

HOW MUCH IS THIS SHARED SUPPLY COSTING YOU A YEAR?

The reason I am asking is because is it worth changing anything if it doesn't cost you much.

Once we know that figure you might be able to ask the owner of the property to contribute to the cost (but not the standing charge as you would have to pay that anyway imo)

OP answered this earlier,

MultiFuelBurner said:

I think I asked this before but how much does this garage meter covering the two garages cost you per year? 

''Sorry may have missed your previous question, its about £30 a month,''

Thanks I missed that as well, don't get notifications anymore....doh!!

So £15 standing charges roughly.

£15 of use which if it's 50/50 £7.50 a month if that against over £3k to separate it all out

No brainer to me and even if the owner of the other property refuses to contribute I would right that off.

deano2099

sonypc100 said:

If an old lady moves in and has 1 LED bulb in there and nothing else then in exchange for a few bottles of red a year and going halves in the standing charge - I'll happily keep things as they are 

However I have a feeling it will be let to a family and most likely have a washer/tumble dryer/fridge freezer etc in there and then it becomes necessary to work something formal out

Right, but if whoever takes over has the same attitude, if all they want to run is 1 LED bulb they might not think that's worth £15 a month and a few bottles of wine. They could just fit a battery powered light for cheaper or use a torch.
Also to check: you mention the garage is too far away from your house to run the electrics into from there, but you're concerned a new neighbour may have a washer/fridge freezer, etc. in there. Is the garage much closer to their property than yours? Eg. it's round the corner and down the road from your house, but backs on to theirs? Because in that case, are you absolutely sure *their* garage electrics aren't being run off their house supply in the first place? They're definitely from the meter?
Honestly I think with it being a rental, you're going to struggle to get them to pay anything. Ultimately they'll probably prefer to just have no electrics in the garage than deal with the complication. At best you could maybe get them to put "no electrical devices to be used in the garage" into the rental agreement to avoid any future issues. But your choices are probably have a new supply put in for you, or just accept that it'll be cheaper to continue to pay their bit. Because I suspect your desire for electrics in those garages massively outweighs theirs, which puts you in a very weak negotiating position.

ArbitraryRandom

deano2099 said:

 Because I suspect your desire for electrics in those garages massively outweighs theirs, which puts you in a very weak negotiating position.

The owner is currently marketing the house - meaning a stronger position in terms of not wanting potential buyers put off by a dispute with the neighbour over who pays for what/access etc.

sonypc100

Hello all, thanks again for the many, many comments - appreciated.

I've had the landlord around of garage 2 today he is gent in his 80's who used to live here in the 70's and his mother in law lived her before him in the 60's

So.... the big revelation....

In the 60/70's my flat used to own both garage 1 and garage 2! I had no idea!

Hence why 1 feed/supply/meter was put in to cover them both

When one of the properties was sold the garage was sold to another house down the lane but no one decided to do anything with the supply or metering.

So the bill for garage 2 has always been paid by my property

I guess back then when it was no electric garage doors, tumble dryers, electric cars, it was just a lightbulb at 10p a month so it would have been seen as insignificant.

Moving forward, garage 2 has a property above it owned by the landlord (sorry it gets complex) so what they are going to do is take a feed from the property above garage 2 and feed it down into the garage below to use for lights, garage door and some sockets - this means no sub meter, second MPAN and account and no additional standing charges.

Then my feed/smart meter will stay in garage 2 and only be used for what I consume in garage 1 as all garage 2's usage will be removed from my meter.

We've also agreed that we will come to some arrangement over the last 14 years over standing charges (I'm not chasing them for usage) and once worked out they will pay me a reasonable amount to cover half the charges.

victor2

Sounds like a solution has been found then. 

ArbitraryRandom

Excellent.

I hesitate to say, but I'm aware of times when the DNO will 'move' a meter a very small distance (such as from one side of a wall to another) for either no charge or a minimal charge when there's a question over access. 

If that's helpful. 

MultiFuelBurner

sonypc100 said:

Hello all, thanks again for the many, many comments - appreciated.

I've had the landlord around of garage 2 today he is gent in his 80's who used to live here in the 70's and his mother in law lived her before him in the 60's

So.... the big revelation....

In the 60/70's my flat used to own both garage 1 and garage 2! I had no idea!

Hence why 1 feed/supply/meter was put in to cover them both

When one of the properties was sold the garage was sold to another house down the lane but no one decided to do anything with the supply or metering.

So the bill for garage 2 has always been paid by my property

I guess back then when it was no electric garage doors, tumble dryers, electric cars, it was just a lightbulb at 10p a month so it would have been seen as insignificant.

Moving forward, garage 2 has a property above it owned by the landlord (sorry it gets complex) so what they are going to do is take a feed from the property above garage 2 and feed it down into the garage below to use for lights, garage door and some sockets - this means no sub meter, second MPAN and account and no additional standing charges.

Then my feed/smart meter will stay in garage 2 and only be used for what I consume in garage 1 as all garage 2's usage will be removed from my meter.

We've also agreed that we will come to some arrangement over the last 14 years over standing charges (I'm not chasing them for usage) and once worked out they will pay me a reasonable amount to cover half the charges.

That sounds agreeable...it's good to talk